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
©2024 Joan Mazza
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