A native of Alabama, since 1985 Richard Arnold has lived, worked, raised a family, and explored the wilderness on Vancouver Island, B.C. His creative and scholarly writings have appeared in The Trumpeter, Ecoforestry, ECW Press, Organization & Environment, Isle, and Snowy Egret.
Tilted graveyard, shaved mountain skull, where green ghosts haunt near tombstones of stumps.
We have all seen the films and photos
And read the books
About how a wounded shark sometimes strangely
eats itself
Turns and gobbles its own bloody entrails
When hooked and gaffed by violent men in a boat
then dies
Taking with it millions of tiny worms
Parasites sucked to it crawling over its skin
On its long slow slide
to the seafloor
We hear that Earth too Will one day eat itself Oceans glutted by glaciers that melted Inside this globe we’ve glazed with greenhouse Rising to devour the land
Two parts of the same organism One part engrossed by a Mindless munching of The other part The poisoned bleeding part
Nature liquidating real estate
Then when it happens what shall we be
The worms that sink with the shark or
The godlike fisherman who saves it
Frees it from the hook
Takes it gently aboard his boat
Flushes out the poisoned bait
Gives it kind and thoughtful care
Month by month
Until it heals
and swims wild again
Which shall we be
I walked one day in Tenaka Creek Down to the Prophet River.
(heard salmonberry bird singing)
I walked in solitude, met not a soul All the way down to the river.
(smelled yellow violet singing)
Spruce speared the sky above my head And pointed my way to the river.
(saw soaring redtail singing)
I came to a thundering waterfall As I drew near to the river.
(tasted cool mist singing)
I’d walked for hours and when I arrived In the late afternoon I lay and revived In the sun—-where the creek meets the river.
(felt Earth under me singing)
I dozed, and dreamed of millions of kinds Of beasts and birds along both sides Of a creek that ran on forever. They tried to speak but made no sound And I knew in my dream that they must find My voice to help them forever.
(mouths were open but not singing)
I awoke and heard the harmony Of the creek as it was chuckling to me And the steady roar of the river.
(sounded like eternity singing)
Beautiful music, but after awhile I listened no more except to my soul Whose burden outshouted the river.
(got my pen and paper and started singing)
man and eagle December morning Englishman River
man walks fast
young eyes see sunrise thru bare trees see salmon corpses from the spawn just done see river running high with rain and mountain snow see logs jammed boulders jumbled
seeing, thinks he needs names to understand:
Capricorn, Cottonwood, Chum, Chinook, Englishman, Arrowsmith, Cedar, Granite and
[what to call this poem?]
while eagle, sitting,
hardeyed patient
with memory of eons
beyond and before
names
watching the river
knows
bones:
of salmon of seasons of stars of trees bones of the very mountain itself left scattered where the river tore and devoured
[bones of poems]
man knows names
eagle knows bones, watches the river
I came back hoping for animals
My first climb 20 years ago I stood here on this summit rock looking down 3000 feet to Nanaimo and the shining strait
Then, I was in perfect quiet— except for rush of seaborn wind and one high-soaring raven’s croak— seeing far mountains thick with trees
Nearly stepped in new bear dung glistening black as the creature that dropped it and watched a buckskin cougar fade into a distant wall of rock
Today (like then) I see stone scratched where glaciers a hundred centuries gone dragged by and there’s a newer scratch: A road has come since I was here
Now aware of a noise that first I think is wind—-but much too smooth: Buzz of the city from down below spreads up this hill like rot on fruit
I look around hoping for animals
But what I see is a campfire’s corpse, whisky bottle, mudstiff panties, ruptured condom, tissue gobs, a dozen rusty cartridge cases
Before I turn to go back down to where I wish I didn’t belong I claw an apple up out of my pack thump its red summit, knock off a bug
and bare my fangs, recalling my name: Most dangerous animal on earth munching as I gaze west at hills where green ghosts haunt among tombstones of stumps
Back on the trail I begin descending and suddenly stop I see my animal: Close by the road and the stinking fire is a small fresh skeleton (probably rat)
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