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How to hold a kinglet in my hand so I don’t break its wings and it doesn’t bite my thumb, how it lies in my palm, stunned, until it starts up and bolts into the air I know the mustards—the Cruciferae— some of the snapdragons, some of the vetch— On the Farallones, I know the cliffs: the calls: the shrieking in the air I know the murmur from a thousand murre throats as a peregrine flies over the colony, and one by one, they take off, frightened, then dozens, hundreds, and sprinkle into the sea I know the sound of a humpback slapping the water with his fin, his breath stinking of krill, the sound of his spout like a steam engine hissing I’ve seen the way spray lifts over Arch Rock and runnels down and soaks all the sleeping sea lions so their pelts turn dark I’ve seen fish veering at the same time, mackerel, sardines I know which tracks are skink tracks in the forest I know how to find the star zigadene every spring I know the history of this snag: I was here when an owl landed and a branch broke and the owl flapped away I know the names of the machines that cut down the forest– feller buncher, shovel logger, tower yarder, stroke delimber, skidder I don’t know how to safeguard, stand in front of, shelter except to speak as if a word could shelter but I don’t know what word that would be
Ellery Akers’ latest book is Swerve: Poems on Environmentalism, Feminism, and Resistance (1st World Publishing, 2020).
Copyright 2020 Ellery Akers
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Just ordered the book. Ellery Akers is a beautiful person and she writes beautiful poetry. This was the poem I needed today. Thank you Ellery!
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One poem and I will find her book. I only know to plant natives in my garden and show passers by the butterflies.
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Beautiful. Profound.
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