"It's a Dangerous World"

Day Nine: There is nowhere that you can go to escape the reach of war; it is like a metastasizing cancer that spreads to the farthest corner of the world. So even in our remoteness, without telephone or television or newspapers, it finds us. The difference is that here at our cabin in northern British Columbia, I can strike a balance. The chaos caused by the human species is tempered by the natural order of things. And without distractions, we can see global events with greater clarity, putting them in their proper perspective. Never was that more apparent than on an August day in 2006 when I turned on the radio to listen to the morning news.

“IT’S A DANGEROUS WORLD”

Eight o’clock Friday morning,
I sit with a cup of coffee in my hand,
Listening to CBC World News
“Alleged plot by terrorists foiled by U.K.
Causes havoc at airports,
Increased security, long lines.”

Through the window I watch
A black bear pull at a leafy branch
Strip dark purple haws with his teeth
He ambles
Through the high meadow grass
Drops of dew sparkle
In the morning light

The bear stops at the woodpile
Looking for a tasty bug
Crosses the driveway
On his way to the crab apple tree,
A tree he climbed last night
Shaking it with all his might.

He snuffles
Under the tree
Finding tiny nuggets of fallen fruit
Red and green apples
No bigger than a bite
He stands tall on hind feet
Jumps to grab a branch
Stretching, pulling,
Bending limbs
To reach his mouth.

The radio dirge continues,
Three more Coalition deaths
In Afghanistan, killed
By Taliban extremists
“It is a dangerous world”
George W. Bush says.

A leaf hangs from the corner of his mouth
As the black bear retraces his steps
To the hawthorn tree
To the clusters of fruit
Ripening in the August sun
Berries, apples, flowers, bugs
He must eat a lot to fatten up
Before the snow flies

The threat alert is elevated to
Red, its highest level.
It is a dangerous world
That we have made.
I turn off the radio, drink my coffee
And watch the black bear move
Into the woods
At a gentle pace.














... P. L. Morningstar
.