#tbt Last Man Out of Parker Wildlife Refuge 1984

They say the island hermit is just afraid
to be outgoing, still living there, some nerve,
upon a ragged sandbar, domain of deer
and waterfowl, a government preserve.
He'd rather live alone, like a renegade.
But Lew, if asked, would gladly volunteer
a different point of view, remembering when
the island was a neighborhood, a place
for names and faces, not a forsaken den
for migratory birds, or solitaire.
The lilac bushes are all that fill the space
familiar with that far-off yesterday.
It's not that Lew has left the human race.
It's just that everyone has moved away.

2002