Bear Bones

Bear bones and Bach
turn Sunday
into ordered fragments
of sound anatomy.

"I hate Nature."
I tell my wife
when the cat
deposits a bird
on the kitchen floor.

I Hate Nature.

I sit
my back against
a hemlock
scarred by claws.

I trace
the tiny teeth marks
on the body
of a bear's bone.

A genius
strikes a note
on a grand piano
with its legs cut short.

One note.

We are both
predator and prey
all life must eat
like the cat
at my feet
and the bear
whose bones
I hold
like the genius
and me.

Life thrives on death.

I am cursed
because I know that.

The pianist
strikes another note.

I watch
a merganser
and her hooded chicks
run on water.
Most of them will die
before they fly.

I Hate Nature.

I hate him
because he takes
the order from my life.

Predator and prey
do not exist.
Strong and weak
we all die
just the same.

Yet sound
lives on forever
one note
one note
one note
echoing
through
time.