“Some Words for the Week”

I hear from a neighbor

that a mountain lion

got into his goat pen

and killed two of them at dawn

the forest service set a trap

and caught the cat

and when asked

what they would do with it

they said they had to put it down

I say it’s a shame to hear

and my neighbor says

hopefully the animals

and the humans can learn

from this interaction

to respect each other’s space

and after I hear this

I walk back inside

and sit on the couch and cry

for I know we will never learn

to respect this home

of all living things

until there is nothing left

to kill without reason

until the rivers are dry

which they mostly already are

until the forest are ash

and there are no more

paw prints on the fallen snow

we will ruin until we’ve ruined

all that there was

the world was once so beautiful

I think of this all the time

the way the plains looked

before the tract home

how the rivers glinted with gold

left there to shine and shimmer

now the morning is cut open

by motorcycles and chainsaws

and the mountain lion

did was it was made to do

and died for no reason at all

other than because

we could kill it

Alexander Shalom Joseph is a writer from Gilpin County. He has two published books and one more forthcoming in the Fall of 2022. For more information and to subscribe to Alexander’s Newsletter go to alexandershalomjoseph.com