This poem describes why I used to go camping. Nowadays my urges for quiet privacy are satisfied by spending time in my one-room cottage.

Can’t you sense pathetic undertones
whenever you associate with men?
And can’t you hear the women’s hidden groans
and screaming whispers? There: they sound again,
like hisses from within the heart of earth,
disruptions as the mantle strains and tears.
I’d like to think them signs of growth or birth
but no one in this clamor grows or bears.

The city is a storm of furtive voice
within an urgent hurricane of need.
Whoever hears must listen – we’ve no choice –
to each and every screaming whisper plead
for our attention, seek an inner ear,
until we’re driven far away from here.