Civic Naturalism
Who is paying for that tedious Smokey Bear commercial that is on all the time - enough already!
The children half ring the park ranger. She bids them raise their right hand. They recite a pledge of civic duty, its tenants to be upheld during the family daytrip. They pledge a pledge of custodianship. They pledge a pledge of extracurricular learning. The parents snap pictures, take video, offer their silent to half voiced encouragement, these moments not yet shareable, cellular data being patchy in the mountains in the desert. Late autumn sun gleams pale bright overhead. It shines like a merit badge over the civic educational proceedings. Basso rumble of campervan exhaust mutes the recitation. Seniors exit from idling rented camper vans. Since their construction, near on a century ago, the toilet facilities have not been equaled for regional architectural interest. Tiny squamates craw over the stone facade. A sun bleached placard tells of its construction. It shows photos of semiliterate men and their pack animals, ungulates, photos their pet animals, small nocturnal carnivora, tamed for mousing. They stand beside watersheds, since grown diminished and irregular. They built the lavatories, they built the giftshops, these semiliterate men. They danced with ranchers’ daughters, shy and slow, danced with each other, likewise, such events, one touch, one song, passed or passing out of living memory, as streams pass also, from mountain to desert, evaporating.
