Western culture, and probably world culture as well, has been involved since the beginning of the modern period not only in its own self- destruction, but in the destruction of the earth, the environment which has bred and nursed it. Of all the downers we confront, this literal transformation of the loving body, the garden of earth into a desert brings me down the most. During that year many of the young people who had tried to find ways out of some of the dead ends of Western Culture discovered how difficult such escape could be. The speaker of this poem is one of them, who sought a new beginning homesteading in the pristine wilderness of British Columbia and who ended up working in a huge local pulp and paper mill. December 21 is, of course, the winter solstice, the darkest and shortest day of the year.
Rooster sleeps, infant coughs, wife groans.
Stove cold, pipes froze, truck stuck. Uncoffied and late to work. Slosh through the flume into the saltchuck Pablum for fish, heavily spiced. It was one of the last virgin stands on the coast of B. C. Cruised, felled, limbed, bucked Skidded, yarded, loaded, trucked Dumped, boomed, sorted, tugged Towed, spiked, barked, lugged Ripped, slashed, cross-cut. Pulped, shredded, screened Bleached, tested, cleaned Blended, thickened, died Rolled, pressed, dried Wound, rewound, finished.