Liberties

We were driving North. A sign read, There will be no more wilderness; I thought of my grandfather’s softness whilst hugging him when I was a little boy. It was as if God hadn’t created us naked or defenseless and we had all we needed. It was as if wilderness would never cease to be. Now we must attend to it or die. Unlike the rat in good Horace, I am mostly content with my lot. Get out of the way, I mutter, when pain approaches. We live in such tragic times, buffeted like stone more than flesh. Yet each day the fulgent sun rises, blackbirds gather on the wire.