May 2024
Bio Note: I’m still in isolation mode, which appears to agree with me. I’ve used this great pause to write more and to read books again, aiming to read 100 books a year. My poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Atlanta Review, and The Nation. I live in rural central Virginia in the woods, surrounded by quiet and wildlife.
Snapping Turtle
Late spring and the pond is warm again,
murky after rain. The snout of a snapper
pokes through the surface, sends ripples
to the shore. This large shell, body hidden,
one of two snapping turtles who migrate
from pond to pond, ancient and fearless.
Is this the same one I’ve seen for sixteen
years? How can I know him individually
without getting dangerously close? Her?
She’s a reptile who survived the asteroid,
fearless, voracious, without predators
except humans. I grab my camera, draw
as close as I dare when she hauls herself
onto the sandy shore. I photograph her face,
claws, the rough skin I’ll never touch.
On her shell, moss and algae grow, her sharp
bony beak open as if she’s about to speak.
I’m listening for the words I seek.
Originally published in The Journal of Radical Wonder, June 2022
Mice and Voles
Without you, forests cut down would
not regenerate, and not migrate
north as the planet warms.
Researchers leave acorns painted
with a code to tell their species
on trays in the forest, microchip
deer mice to track which ones
are the most bold and energetic,
who buries the most acorns,
forgets them, lets them germinate
into saplings. Some personalities
prefer one kind of nut to another,
plant more than all the others, reveal
traits that will impact the density
of the forest and its species.
Invisible masters of industry,
unnamed and attacked by cats, your
diversity and curiosity save us.
Let us praise you—shy, elusive, small
mammals in the leaf mat—when we
raise our gaze in awe at the canopy.
Originally published in Swim Press, April 23, 2023
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