Great Blue Heron, Cataraqui River, Kingston, Ontario
by Meg Freer
What we want
On the way to the airport, reed deep prairie grass,
color of Father’s faded hunting boots, in daylight
stretching into afternoon, she is standing, coyote,
but larger, sod-raked, leaf littered. Her amber coat,
a hundred threads of color glowing golden. Struck-still
the airport wolf wanders this municipal drainage area,
Wayne County wetland, wilderness among the commotion
we cause, such turbulence in our airways. As we carefully
tuck the car into a tiny space, grab bags, move toward security
all the silent TV screens scream above our heads, giant maw
of want— the dictator wants recognition, his mighty missiles
aimed across continents like migrating cranes. The politician
wants us to want him: glittered and streamed across America
like some catchy jingle, addictive ad, Coca Cola campaign.
Such men flaunt, then keep their power mantled to themselves,
money vaulted in secret. The airport wolf wants nothing save
the simple quest of fur & blood & teeth, another dawn, raw
light filtering through pine. Here, long lines of scurry step
on industrial tile. What ways we devise to blow each other up.
The airport wolf slinks through the slough, rips rabbit to shreds.
Ellen Stone advises a poetry club at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan where she taught in the public schools and raised three daughters with her husband. Ellen co-hosts a monthly poetry series, Skazat! and is a co-editor of a new literary journal, Public School Poetry. Her poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in Midwest Review, Third Coast, Cold Mountain Review, and About Place. Ellen is the author of The Solid Living World (Michigan Writers’ Cooperative Press, 2013) and What Is in the Blood (Mayapple Press, 2020). Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Ellen’s website: www.ellenstone.org.
Meg Freer is an award-winning poet and piano teacher in Ontario, where she enjoys the outdoors year-round. She has published two poetry chapbooks and holds a Graduate Certificate with Distinction in Creative Writing from Toronto’s Humber School of Writers. She keeps visual images in her head for a long time and her inspiration for poetry and photography often comes from intriguing juxtapositions, clusters and angles in both the human and the natural world. Highlights of her published work can be found on her Facebook page.