by Barbara Parchim
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| The famous Hollywood-roaming mountain lion known as P-22 is drastically underweight and was probably struck and injured by a car, wildlife experts who conducted a health examination on the big cat said on Tuesday. The male cougar, whose killing of a leashed dog has raised concerns about its behavior, probably will not be released back into the wild and could be sent to an animal sanctuary or euthanized, depending on its health, the California department of fish and wildlife said. —The Guardian, December 14, 2022 |
you overstepped your allotment
designated when we took over the landscape—
wandered into the backyards of
designer dogs that scamper like prey
crossed the wrong freeways—
a concrete grid overlaid on the land
meaningless, artificial boundaries
not mapped in your DNA
how could you know
only certain spaces were allowed?
how solitary your existence
far from the Santa Monica mountains
the occasional park,
a checkerboard of wild between our constructs
what happens next is our decision
as we decide everything in our dominion
your celebrity may evoke some empathy
as the wild slips away
Barbara Parchim lives on a small farm in southwest Oregon. She enjoys gardening and hiking and volunteered for several years at a wildlife rehabilitation facility. Her poems have appeared in Allegro, Isacoustic, The NewVerse News, Turtle Island Quarterly, Windfall, Front Porch Review, Jefferson Journal, Cirque, and others. Her first book What Remains was published by Flowstone Press in October, 2021.