The Urban Woods

They are hugely successful
adapters within nature's household
observing the habits of 
humans who inhabit
an environment
originally theirs, now
claimed by construction
of houses, buildings taking
the place of the natural
surroundings once theirs alone.
They, at least, have accepted
the reality of a shared
landscape, one where humans
boldly present themselves
secure in the knowledge that
they alone control and take
ownership of what they will
while the others take refuge
in the places where
nature has designed itself for
preservation, unsuitable for
building enterprises and
human habitation. At dawn
and at dusk when shadows
are absent and night
still cloaks their presence
lurk the dim figures of
the original inhabitants
the foxes, coyotes, and fishers
the carnivores occasionally
swifting away with a
hapless pet unaccustomed to the
reality of life in the primitive
rawness of survival, their
absence a mystery to the humans
whose presence dominate the
waking hours, oblivious to the
dramas that unfold in the nighttime
urban woods surrounding them.