contemplating intent, consent, kill lists and ceasefire: deer hunting season, regular firearm, November 15 – 30, 2024 Michigan, U.S.


“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”

Arthur Schopenhauer.


a white-tailed deer drinks from a bird bath,
which was presumed to be of exclusive use of songbirds — especially, eastern bluebirds,
on the land the author occupies
Halloween 2024
“all treatery, no trickery”

Regular firearm, deer hunting season began yesterday in Michigan, United States of America, and the crack of rifles and the blast of shotguns destroy both peace and life.

There is some version of a legalized, defined kill list or belated, legalized “protection list” for nearly every non-human animal being population on Earth. And, for human animal being populations on Earth too.

What defines murder for human beings, of the human animal body?

INTENT.

All Hunting is INTENT – intent to kill.

All animal “livestock” agriculture is INTENT — intent to kill for profit.

Genocide is INTENT.

Continue reading “contemplating intent, consent, kill lists and ceasefire: deer hunting season, regular firearm, November 15 – 30, 2024 Michigan, U.S.”

399

The Queen, Mother and Grandmother Grizzly Bear,

the iconic Matriarch of Grand Teton National Park & the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem


Monday morning, June 22, 2020,
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, US
The iconic and prolific female grizzly bear [399] — a mother and grandmother was in forage with her own eldest adult daughter [610] — also a mother, along with her cubs and grand cubs.

399, pictured here, who should be referred to respectfully as Grand Mother Bear, at the age of 24, in Spring of 2020 birthed four cubs [a rare, large litter no matter the age of the grizzly, but at 24, was truly astounding] was with 610, whom should be called Daughter Bear, who birthed two cubs as well.
All but two of the six cubs were mostly hidden by the deep sagebrush and dense fog.

What wild majesty to behold.
Lodged in my mind’s eye forevermore.

photo by: author

“Grizzly 399” is gone,

and this Autumn, and last, and every season in between have required so much Auden


Continue reading “399”

Hope

one can tell a little
maybe even, a lot

about what “hope” means to someone

as the garden’s fruits and blooms
are winding down,
on verge of frost,
light or hard

in October

will they glean the last remnant of the apples and pears from the trees for sauce, butter or crisp

or will they leave them be
for
the deer,
rabbits
raccoons,
possums
or marmots

will they cut the last of their garden’s
snapdragons, borage,
zinnias, marigolds, amaranth
and bring them indoors to fill vases for their temporary gaze

or will they leave them be
that,
an errant
monarch,
red admiral,
honeybee,
moth
or hummingbird

may find
a hibernation,
migration,
or last supper
meal

a sweet sustenance
an oasis lifeline
a traveling mercy

Continue reading “Hope”

phenology II

lilacs re-leaf, re-bloom
in October
hummingbird moths feed,


common lilacs [Syringa vulgaris]
— not cultivars —
in unprecedented re-leaf and re-bloom
October 12, 2024


and simultaneously,

She’s un-be-coming a human be-ing

She’s destined to,

we’re destined to, too


no
need to
tell me, explain
what’s happening

as constant witness,

as constant, remote witness to slaughter,

as constant gardener,

as constant tender,

as constant daughter,


i see.

i recognize.

i know,

Continue reading “phenology II”

ghosts

if you’re seeing this, you’re alive,

though dying — no matter your age, health, relative safety, relative comfortability —

on this living, though suffering and actively dying, planet

Earthlings and Earth together in a protracted hospice

right now, in these brief years, these grief years,

we are the “ever-living ghosts of what once was”

a “was” that most all of us alive this morning have never known as lived experience — save for the untouched tribes — 10,000 Uncontacted Peoples — 10,000 unsystematized, “uncivilized”

and the Ocean, and the few, still-standing Ancient One Trees; the untouched Desert, and the Mountains — even the youngest of them — The Tetons and The Himalayas, know what it “was” to be alive.

we are mere ghosts, walking dead.


Continue reading “ghosts”

asters, monarchs & crone

i offer purple bouquets

rooted in the ground,
not dying, wasted, in vase or pot

this purple
reflected in your eyes, my eyes

monarchs married in our october gaze

we’re not long for this world, we, monarchs, asters, and crone

still, we feast, without any gluttony, waste or fear

one of us, prepares for honeymoon flight to Mexico

where marigolds and death await

later, birds with bellies filled by aster, will seed a known, unknown future

crone’s eyes full and clear, she sees it all, near and far, past, present, future, winter and spring

she is rooted too, laughing and grieving in the threshold

between death and the future, future and the death

between remnant wild and final ravagement

between time and anti-time

thousands of purple petals cascade from her crown chakra like asters //

Continue reading “asters, monarchs & crone”

Neith

after weeks of near-drought, there came a life-bringing rainstorm,

and so Neith from her realms, overnight, joined in world-building, world-weaving with her Earthly kin

laying gossamer highway across the tree canopy, the meadow and the garden — an autumnal garland, glistening in the september morning light, heralding equinox


Continue reading “Neith”

the apple pickers

when the Sun reaches the precise height
above horizon,
then arrive the tawny-bodied apple pickers and gleaners/
stilts for legs,
i count twenty limbs in tree camouflage/
bypassing the bushel and the sack
the bounty of fruit down into their bellies //

ears like SETI,
searching for sounds of hoof-less life — canine or primate in the universe
and also, for movement of my unseen, yet intense presence —my breath and pulse slowed, just above, just beyond them —

but i am not in a tree stand/ i brandish no shotgun, no ray gun ///

how rare, these ones are among us,

— among we Earthlings :

silent, gentle and elegant ///

they linger in the morning gold as it stretches West to the lake and evaporates too quick into its blues/

i linger in the dark cool of the open bedroom window, facing North

my senses also honed — and sated//

on this eve of August’s ides,

autumn has not trespassed on the summer,
but was intentionally summoned ///


apple-picker in the morning
on the eve of
August’s ides
2024