5

Capital, we are coming—

because Paleozoic flora and fauna

did not die so condensate

could liquefy their remains

in rupturing pipelines

because these rivers have

directions of their own to follow

as they wander towards the

seas they began in

because a spirit bear once stopped

on the highway somewhere

between Terrace and Prince Rupert

and casually watched my car pass

as though I were the ghost

in the machine of its forest

because the Haida have paddled

these waters so long their island

is a shell of first peoples

and ravens are not made of bitumen

because the oil companies

don’t get to purchase the future

of every living thing yet to be born

yet to breathe in the atmosphere

yet to tumble into a stream

because governments were built

to be surrounded by the people

who came up with the idea

of governments in the first place

knocking them down

where they once put them up