Another Day in This Here Cosmos by Maureen N. McLane

Another Day in This Here Cosmos

Stormthreat, Clouddarkened

mountain, computer

unplugged. Commuters

to nature on a plain

of grass the sheep

munch clear of clover.

A park’s a way to keep

what’s gone enclosed forever.

Rhyme is cheap.

So is pop.

Easy to be obese

in a land fat with rape.

Now the sun burns

unprotected skin.

Now the sheep

dream of lanolin.

To everything alive

we’re kin.

Eat or be eaten—

what the vegan

spurns and the Jain.

I saved a fly

I baptized William Blake

and released to the sky.

Of course he’ll die.

The new grasses

a brighter green

than the older spears

make this a scene

of summer starring

black butterflies. The Faerie

Queene alights from her magic car

a red convertible

and she a glam tranny.

The sheep don’t care.

The sheep don’t mind.

In three months the wind

will blow these trees bare

but for tall pines

littering the forest floor

with browning needles

gone soft in the slow trample

of small creatures and long rain.

A park’s a way to keep

what’s gone enclosed forever.