Call of the Wild

TRUST
Trust that there is a tiger, muscular
Tasmanian, and sly, which has never been
seen and never will be seen by any human
eye. Trust that thirty thousand sword-
fish will never near a ship, that far
from cameras or cars elephant herds live
long elephant lives. Believe that bees
by the billlions find unidentified flowers
on unmapped marshes and mountains. Safe
in caves of contentment, bears sleep.
Through vast canyons, horses run while slowly
snakes stretch beyond their skins in the sun.
I must trust all this to be true, though
the few birds at my feeder watch the window
with small flutters of of fear, so like my own.
Susan Kingsolving
Sometimes it does seem so. Developers are pushing into every corner, every fold and crevice. City council meetings I watch on the television are "let us cut, scrape, pound, dig, burn. We will make money. We want to expand into the boundaries, push buildings into the recovering forest. Into the marsh lands. Into the scared quiet. The refuge." There are many empty buildings in our town already. The deep stream gorges I thought would never be built in have been breached. The ocean views have been blocked by massive condo/hotels. People who once enjoyed the sunset now have the shadows of these goliaths blocking the warmth.
I will come down off my soap box now. Oh but sometimes I can barely take it anymore.