Last night, I was thinking about the way we romanticize nature in our modern world. It doesn't seem to be the same as it was in the past, when poets would write praise poems to it that rivaled the verses they wrote to lovers who were real enough to touch. It's hard to come across a real, authentic piece of virgin wilderness today, even in Canada. When camping, one often gets the sense that they are merely treading through a very good simulacrum of what the park wardens guessed nature would be like, with a few trailors, well groomed trails, and indoor out-houses complete with electricity and runnung water thrown into the mix...It has become very hard to tell fact from fiction in this realm, especially if you're from the city.

PILLS

I wish it were that simple,
that a rustic cascade
of quiet joy
could cleans the sticky cooking
from my conspicous ribs;
that moonlight could move mountains
in one satisfying sweep of sea foam.

But I was nurtured on nicks and cuts
around corners
and copious mounds of rolling hill-side
traced by cracks of asphalt
and homes plied with abundant
redundancies
and making friends
with underground apothecaries
and virgins
distilled into pleasant pills