Environmental Poetry

Speechless

Nature is speechless

But not forgetful

She has not forgotten what we have done for her

She has not forgotten what we have done to her

 

We should still be in an age of wilderness

Where bees are not nearing extinction

Where skylines are filled with trees

But instead we have entered an age of 

Wildlessness

Wild discontent

Destruction-Deconstruction

 

She remembers where once there were forests

And pushes up between cracks in the sidewalk flowers

She remembers where once there were webs

And sends spiders into our homes
I spend time with the spiders she sends-

Admiring Nature’s memories-

And send them back to her

Wishing I could tear up the floorboards to plant flowerbeds

 

She remembers where once there were mountains

And ruins foundations with the roots of her trees

She remembers where once caterpillars spun their cocoons

And sends moths in millions towards our lights

 

I collect the carcasses of moths-

As if to whisper Nature’s name-

And display them wildly with pride

Wishing I could wrap myself in milkweed and put out leaves

 

Everything that Nature has built up

We will have torn down

And Nature is speechless

But not forgetful

 

Sprout

I did not sprout up through the

Damp mountain soil of Newfane, Vermont

Instead I

Scraped my way out through a crack in a sidewalk

In downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma

A flat, flat land

Watered by a Broken Arrow creek I grew

But before I had put out leaves

I was dug up

Transported to a pot outside a home in

Centreville, Virginia

Not a very pretty thing

And I have yet to put out a flower

Though every summer I bud

When my pot is carried from

Alexandria to Townshend

And I believe that I will finally bloom

When I am planted in damp Vermont soil

Where there is no longer rough concrete and

Too many billboards

 

Potomac High Waters

“The water is high” my grandmother states

As she always does

As we turn onto the Parkway and the

Potomac comes into view
This is my home

Not far from the river

So close to the creek

Where the evergreens are interspersed with

Color-auburn and gold

 

And the neighbors yards seem wild

Nature has not forgotten what she used to grow here

She sends birds and squirrels and

Late roses to bloom

Left without anyone to deadhead them

 

And the neighbors yards seem wild

There is a house where zinnias run rampant

They strangle the fence as if

Nature wishes to tear it down

Replace it with wildflowers

 

And the banks of the creek seem wild

There is a knot of roots 

Where the fox lives

I know not whether it is the same fox

That flits through cul-de-sacs and yards

Speaking a language that only Nature knows

 

And the banks of the creek seem wild

There appear deer in twos and threes

Six-pointers, eight-pointers

But I do not love them for the way their heads would sit on a plaque

Nor for the taste of venison

But for the Nature in their eyes and the grace in their leaving

 

“The water is high” my grandmother states

As she always does and I

Want to wade deep into it

And discover the secrets of the river’s floor

 

This is my home

And I see Nature in all of this

Despite this age of wildlessness

And I’d like to stop and stare

 

Museum

Enclosed in my home is a museum of

The intricacies of time and death

Nature’s little afterthoughts

A honeybee, a bumblebee, two Luna moths

Butterflies, beetles, eggshells

Snakeskin, a cicada, a mummified skink,

A wasp’s nest, a raccoon skull, a full fox skeleton

All beauties, all Natural, all remembered

 

If I Look

If I look I will see

Leaves strewn  haphazardly across the sidewalk

In colors ranging from flame

To that of a healing bruise
If I lift them will I see

Crickets, caterpillars, a lonely broken eggshell?

I lift the leaves and often

I find nothing

 

If I look I will see

Crickets, caterpillars, a lonely broken eggshell

And I will protect the caterpillars, the crickets

And I will pick up the eggshell, my own little piece of Nature to take home

 

If I look will I see

Where the eggshell was first penetrated?

Will I see evidence that life

Life flooded out of this thing?

 

If I look I will see

Mushrooms, pixies, faeries

Bugs that I do not know so I name them

Pixies, faeries, beauties

 

If I peer underneath the mushroom will I see

More pixies, more faeries?

Might I see earthworms, millipedes?

Or will I see the veins of the earth?

 

If I look I will see

Death, in all her glory

Bee carcasses, perfectly preserved moths, skeletons, skulls

Things that Nature cared for, cared about

 

And now

I get to do the same

If I look I will see

The Nature inside me

 

Ivy

When I was a child

I used to wrap myself in the ivy

That grew in my grandmother’s yard

Pretending to be a dryad

I would wrap myself in ivy

And lay on the ground

Connecting the way I knew how to the Earth

 

Now that I’m an adult

Ivy grows inside my ribcage

Using me as a trellis, creeping around my heart

I carry the Earth inside of me

 

And when I am dead

I hope that ivy will rise out of my grave