• CONSERVATION CREW
    by UC Poika

    a sow and her cub with shiny black fur coats
    postcard picture themselves drinking from the creek
    as a heron watching them readies to run and fly
    basswoods and balsams are there standing guard
    but a crew of five young men sharing their smokes
    take five from laying logs to slow down the stream
    so the trout can spawn as up the brook they climb
    upward toward the higher wetland mash
    but dragging a mall the last one spies the bears
    then turning runs, captive to his phobic fears,
    and would have run himself to death from such terrors
    had not the rest chased him down like a thief…
    the alien oddly afraid of the native born
    like the Devil we love, the Creator our horror!