Death of a naturalist
( i. m. of John Davis)

For days afterwards there was unsettled weather,
the clouds wouldn’t make a pattern and the wind
was a skittish visitor carrying shadows of sadness,
matching feelings that something had shifted.
The world was no longer as it was or could be
Memories floated by of rescues in canyons,
scaling cliffs or skiing in out of the way places,
now returned to implacable nature.
I remember an eccentric guerrilla scientist
Believing in our satellite of rock, water and air
tethered by gravity to our solar nuclear reactor.
The outdoorsman and woodworker knew the grain,
the chemistry of life and breath.
The growing wise of the world will be due
in no small way to those who lie in modest graves
and who lived and loved in the throat of nature.

George clark 9th nov 2015