Poems by John Popielaski

Mountain Lion

by John Popielaski

From Canary Summer 2013

John lives in Portland, CT, in the Connecticut River Watershed and is trying to help prevent a private 220-mile transportation/utility corridor from being built through central Maine, where he has a camp.

There have been rumors,
unconfirmed reports,
that you, long absent,
have returned.
The failed farms yielded
to the seedlings,
and the forests, first felled
centuries ago,
came back. It’s not
the range historically
your line is used to,
but there’s game
and people do not wander
too far off the trails.
There will be trouble
if you’re spotted, though.
The camera-phone, the modern-day
equivalent of the pitchfork,
will be brandished,
and you’ll find returning
to the fringes difficult.
But there are those
who root for you
and understand you only know
predation, gliding
like an old fear through the woods
in which the civic-minded
will leave poison and take care
their hands do not get injured
setting the excruciating traps.