Danger

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 4, Of Nature

Now that I have gone several rounds with Facebook, finished every chore and honey-do I can recall, and exercised, I am ready to write a NaPoWriMo poem, to the day’s prompt.

That prompt is to poem up something natural that takes my title, some language, and/or ideas from The Strangest Things in the World: A Book About Extraordinary Manifestations of Nature, by Thomas R. Henry. It’s a cool book/Gutenberg Project. I’ll read every word when I am no longer knee-deep in trying to prove to you that I can still turn a phrase, poetic or not.

I love Nature much more than it loves me or you. I roll my eyes at things like “natural ingredients, GMOs (I mean, so what?), organic (prove it and pay for it), back to nature, and off the grid.” Dr. Scott Peck wrote: “…natural does not mean it is essential or beneficial or unchangeable behavior. It is also natural to defecate in our pants and never brush our teeth…” (The Road Less Traveled).

I decided to write a poem:

Of Nature.

I first camped out in the woods or forest
as a Boy Scout, about age twelve.

Years later, I tent camped with my wife
and I learned what chiggers are, sort of.
She had over 100 bites. I had none (that time).

I was sent to Survival Schools by Uncle Sam
to learn skills about how to live alone
with Nature (so we’re never truly alone).

I’ve hiked wilderness trails in several states;
in the mountains, sand pits, and pebble pocked paths
of the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico
(26.2 miles, four times),
and I hiked the boonies in Guam.

I swam in streams, rivers,
stock tanks, ponds, lakes, and two
major oceans. I backpacked in and days later
back out again. I pissed and shit in the woods.

I suffered from heat and nearly froze,
wild animals woke me up and threatened me.

Thunder and lightning and torrential rain
made me question my sanity.

I know the creepy crawler creatures
by first name, and I’ve been bit,
stung (once in the ass), scratched,
charged and needled.

I have taken Benadryl to recover
from the sicknesses that being close to nature
bestowed upon me.

It’s beautiful, wonderful, glorious,
and even freakishly mysterious.

Ask the first in. Ask the pioneers. Ask
the natives. Nature is not a safe place.
Most frightening of all: people!

Take Her for granted at your own peril.
Love the beauty but respect it all.
Nature can and will kill you
without fear or regret. Ask anyone
of the frozen dead bodies
of the Everest climbers.

But then again, what the Hell?
Go ahead. Be one with nature.
Stomp that fire ant den. Follow
that rabbit into the briar patch.
Play piñata with that wasp nest,
and charm or handle that snake.
Enjoy your life. It’s all you get.

Looking both ways is not good enough
in the depths and wilds of nature.
Mind the gaps, look, listen, and be careful where you eat, step, sit, sleep;
and appreciate where you decide to defecate.

Poetry: My Comfort Zone

I pass sweet scented bushes on my trek to hike trails,
I listen to songs. I see the cobalt blues and pinks
of early morning predawn skies. Then sunrise.

The familiar places, benches to rest, to drink,
to ponder, sometimes to listen
and to think about nature.

No talking. I write notes in my book,
a poem about this ravine I dare not cross,
about rocks for stepping or tripping.

About finding happiness outside my comfort zone,
as they say in the voice of cliché,
about what’s a name or identity. Am I what I did?

And the viper, that snake may not allow
my passage as he or she sunbathes
and the morning warms its cold blood.

Look both ways, but tread with care. Mind the gaps where vipers rest.

Three-foot rattlesnake blocking my trail.

Poetry: Big Red

When I first wrote this, I intended it for Sammi’s weekender. She had set a  prescribed limit of 88 words for the prompt word downpour, “no more, no less.” I was 95 words over. While Sammi has loosened up some of her rules, not that one. So, let’s call this poem, “A Second, Longer Downpour.”

She was a hog, bitchin’ red and heavy,
a real dresser on our outings.
Rider down, I could not lift her load.
I never gave her a name.

Straight pipe loud till I fixed her,
but on road trips, she was
my sweet ride. No hyperbole to say
she hugged road from between my legs.

Headin’ up busy highway north of
Fort Walton Beach when Ma Nature
hawked a torrential loogie thunderstorm.
As we headed back south, we got soaked.

The downpour first felt cold in my crotch.
With soaked windshield, visor, and glasses
I couldn’t see shit. I knew they (cars)
could not see me, or us, maybe not each other.

With us in the middle and idiots in cages
driving seventy while blind, we finally got home.
I cut her motor and dropped her stand.
Lovingly I leaned her left, slid off, and stopped shaking.

Walked into my garage, stripped naked, and
dropped soaked biker cloths right there. Yolonda
asked, “What happened to you?” The storm had passed.
I look at her and said, “I think I wet my pants.”

Look both ways. See and be seen.
Mind the gaps. Mind everything riding your hog.

 

Poetry: Live life all the way

all life is one.
undetached. Be alive.
Live your life. really Live it
all the way.

Love a million times, regret none.
Walk the roads, sides, and trails
into the wild. into the wind.
Come back more alive.

Run past a deer, spark a march hare.
Kiss until lips bleed and tongues fail,
Sing and Yell and Scream and Laugh
just because it feels so damn good.
Dance. passionately

Feel deep. Hear music drive
intense tones into your bones,
Make hot red blood pump more life.

Stand alone at a cliff’s edge
on a windy stormy night and Live,
arms up to face the gale
and the drum.

Fear. dangers feel more alive.
Risk is life. Live now, die later.
Sleep and Dream of pleasures.
Awaken to Live and to Love and to die.
if you must rest, just die Living in
hope to really Live it all
again.

©Bill Reynolds 9/27/2018

Live it. Love it. Look both ways and mind the gap. But live life to the limits.

(and happy October)