VIVIAN’S POETRY BOOK, FIRE WATCHER, HAS BEEN PUBLISHED BY GUERNICA EDITIONS.
“The Age of Extinction, one of many eco-poems published in Fire Watcher, was written in 2006. In 2019, scientists are warning of massive global species extinctions.
HERE IS VIVIAN’S POEM:
THE AGE OF EXTINCTION
A few nights ago, a bear danced around my garden carrots /and bowed to sniff the sow’s scat in the soil bed./ Last summer, a deer yanked my Tibetan prayer flags from fire-tower scaffolding/and paraded adorned antlers past trampled skulls in the broken forest. / I am a human animal walking a dirt trail of illusions/ tossing vegetable scraps a mile from cabin for the closest or quickest to snack./ In my first six years of alpine-solitude wrestling/ I saw a hungry caribou outrun/ a wild six-pack of dart-gun helicopters,/ heard ravens chuckle circling above loggers’/ orange flagging tape alit in forest flames,/ followed a scarred moose chase a fleeing Honda generator/ along another new mountain road,/and took photos of a wolf pack stealing the seismic camp’s/grilling steaks and biting off a page/from the First Handbook of Habitat Protection./ Over the next six years from mountain heights, I’ve watched/the wildlife thin and the oil drills strike back./ Is this the Age of Extinction in which only Fortune’s wheels /will roll on?/I pray that some drugged grizzly will wake up/ and flip the switch./Can a human ever gain the insight of a drugged bear?/In the meantime, I’ll sit in the petrified bedrock /with what looks like a young dinosaur/and write for the unwritten record.
VIDEO OF VIVIAN READING THE AGE OF EXTINCTION:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbuDcSR9RTU
MORE OF VIVIAN’S POEMS AT:
Vivian Demuth 