Area Loon Protests the Excessive Noise Pollution Produced by RVs of Nature-Seeking Tourists

Creek in a forest

 

I could live with the tents. Quiet, refined,

polite little things that disturbed nothing, left

nothing but a few stake holes stabbed behind.

 

Even pop-ups, for all their clanking designs,

I tolerated. My problem lies with the rest.

At sun’s peak I watch midflight, resigned

 

at Eagles Jays Cougars Arctic Fox winding

down roads, bulking beasts beneath the cleft

oaks. They lurch into clearings they were assigned.

 

Wait. Then: tremolo calls drown beneath the grind

of water pumps, generator groans, deafening

compressor clicks, broken AC fans that whine,

 

TVs turned up to high. So humans come, pining

for the untamed outdoors, too long bereft

of a simpler life, all trailblazers hoping to find

 

Nature. Not nature like yard leaves, power line

birds, deer who eat gardens, weeds, rats, pests—

just the barren wilderness of long-ago times.

 

Poem by Sara Solberg

Sara Solberg is an MFA candidate at Northern Michigan University. When she isn’t writing, she can be found trekking through the forests surrounding her home, her furry partner in crime, Tasha, by her side. Sara’s work has appeared in Hippocampus, The Manhattanville Review, and The Other Journal.