Shaking Hands With Nature

 

In the great out-of-doors wilderness experience 

of raw nature you venture forth for the express 

purpose of being there whether to find yourself 

capable of adjusting to the fundamentals of existence

or to satisfy your instinctive love of wild green places

unshielded by humanity's great strides in manipulating

their environment for ultra comfort and distance

from the demands of basic needs solved by tame

technological advances; what could be more humbling 

than to find yourself like any other animal searching 

privacy in the vulnerability of primary functions? 

There, where no bathrooms exist rivers and lakes 

and forest do, in abundance. And if you're in a 

heritage wilderness park you can hike the portages 

with your canoe on upraised arms, backpack carrying 

all you need for a week compressed into essentials. 

You will become adept at harnessing that backpack

high and inaccessible between two obliging trees

you will discover on islands cranberries grow on shrubs

and wild rice in shallow depths of bogs. At night the

eerie sound of stealth movement, the distant howls

of wolves, the glory of the night sky's Milky Way.

Each camp site becomes an adventure of discovery

curiosity satiated locating a box over a trench, or one 

with a roof and open sides, even occasionally a fully 

enclosed loo where you needn't return your toilet roll 

to your backpack and the gratitude felt when you 

find a worn bar of soap left behind sitting on a rock 

awaiting use at the edge of a lake. You are an intruder 

deserving of the ire of squirrels tossing cones on your 

tent from the pines above. The bold and tenacious mice 

who scurry over your cooking pans proprietarily as

dusk descends are not there for your amusement

though they do perform that function. The jays that

swoop expertly to fly off with a long spaghetti strand

they've beaked exact the rental fee they have imposed.

And you have succeeded in shaking hands with nature

as you learn to avoid rapids, to keep your distance from

moose, to identify the horrifying shriek of a screech owl.