Notes on the Nature of Things
1.
On the trail, the naturalist points
to the muted scarlet berries of manzanita,
“Why would the plant pack its seeds
in such hard little bundles?" he asks,
then he explains: parent plants avoid
competition with their offspring.
When fox and coyote carry the seeds
away, the young plants grow
in another wellspring
some other shaft of light.
Inside every story, a strategy.
I don't blame him for the language of why.
We demand the raven have a reason
for her black feathers.
2.
Language for Monkshood:
The flower hooded itself for God.
After a cost-benefit analysis, the flower
made a pact with the bees.
Before they called her Aconite or Wolfbane, before bees,
she chose her own name, curled inward
let her sepals go violet.
3.
A bird can't smell--she needs to travel lightly.
Her empty brain, carrying 300 songs.
The human ear can only hear a portion of these songs
They drop down canyons, between our conventions
of thought, or lift up above us, like the birds themselves.
4.
Desire has its reasons, sure.
They tell us it's all in the pheromones.
How comforting to know: we are who we are,
but first, we are children of stories,
stories of damp forests, heavy with scent.
This poem appears in Squaw Valley Review 2008 this Spring. Purchase the book at http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/poetry_anthology.html
****
"Wild Seed" was published on-line in Convergence.
"Of Asphalt" was published in Qarrtsiluni's Journaling the Apocalypse. Now in print, it can also be viewed on-line.
This site is under construction. More poems (by additional authors) and links (to Lisa's interviews) to come.
1.
On the trail, the naturalist points
to the muted scarlet berries of manzanita,
“Why would the plant pack its seeds
in such hard little bundles?" he asks,
then he explains: parent plants avoid
competition with their offspring.
When fox and coyote carry the seeds
away, the young plants grow
in another wellspring
some other shaft of light.
Inside every story, a strategy.
I don't blame him for the language of why.
We demand the raven have a reason
for her black feathers.
2.
Language for Monkshood:
The flower hooded itself for God.
After a cost-benefit analysis, the flower
made a pact with the bees.
Before they called her Aconite or Wolfbane, before bees,
she chose her own name, curled inward
let her sepals go violet.
3.
A bird can't smell--she needs to travel lightly.
Her empty brain, carrying 300 songs.
The human ear can only hear a portion of these songs
They drop down canyons, between our conventions
of thought, or lift up above us, like the birds themselves.
4.
Desire has its reasons, sure.
They tell us it's all in the pheromones.
How comforting to know: we are who we are,
but first, we are children of stories,
stories of damp forests, heavy with scent.
This poem appears in Squaw Valley Review 2008 this Spring. Purchase the book at http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/poetry_anthology.html
****
"Wild Seed" was published on-line in Convergence.
"Of Asphalt" was published in Qarrtsiluni's Journaling the Apocalypse. Now in print, it can also be viewed on-line.
This site is under construction. More poems (by additional authors) and links (to Lisa's interviews) to come.
Lisa
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