ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 4
WILDNESS COMES BACK
The wild in America is contained, pushed back, owned by the people
as a public treasure for all time. Thus it is separated from us
and our settlements so that America can possess its wildness and be
free from it, well-ordered. But the wildness comes back. In the
abandoned pastures and on the rock ledges made by highway cuts,
cedar saplings appear and then come up in crowds. Along the old
fencerows and in carelessly-tended alleys trash trees--sumac, tree
of heaven--spring out. Scavenger animals multiply, certain birds
find the suburbs and cities to their liking, cracks in the asphalt
or cement breed greenery suppressed elsewhere, the dumps draw
colorful vermin to their feast. And the wildness takes over new
types of habitat, as when the vines cover abandoned shacks and
trailers, and the rodents shelter there. It takes on new forms
that we don't at first recognize as the wild asserting itself:
toxins and meth labs, birth anomalies and addictions, unchecked
wealth confronted by ever-larger desires--these are wild, these
are crawling over and under our safe buildings. We are crazy for
guns, we have an insatiable desire for power, control, security.
The law devours wildly, contempt for losers is a wild passion,
money is the wildest thing of all. We make the largest explosions
the world has ever known because the wildness is in us. We vote
for it, we consume it, it eats away at us, it is the terror our
eyes see everywhere, and we can't stop our hearts beating too fast,
our breath coming out in shouts. We have a wild, violent desire
to get a peace so endless it seems natural to do anything we can
think of to obtain it.