yester day
i counted more than 30 birds, here
first i kept a running list in my head
then, i made a google doc to share

i didn’t even know there was an organized
bird migration count happening
until after the fact

this morning,
it finally felt
vernal
warm, new air,
a gentle breeze
the exact kind of day to find a fawn nested in the tall grasses around a mulberry or walnut tree
while her mother is off foraging

every one is being born today
every one is dying today

somewhere

it seems //

i can’t remember what it feels like to be a beloved daughter
i can’t remember what it feels like to be a loving daughter

now, repeat those sentences with the word mother instead of daughter

everything is drifting,
has drifted

everything thing is being pulled away,
has pulled away

the gravity of me is no longer enough
to hold these familiar bodies in orbit

in a system of we,
in a galaxy of us

we existed,

only on paper, i think.

but not on kodak paper — you hated photos

///

today,

on “World Migratory Bird Day”

the May Plow arrived even as every one is

gestating,
laboring,
birthing,
nesting,
laying,
nursing

birds, turtles, deer,
chipmunks,
turkeys,
geese and snakes

the timing of these men with their machines is so detached

from the cycle of Earthen life:

mothering,
laying,
arriving,
hatching,
latching,
nursing
feeding

raising and rearing.

the products of men with their machines are fertilized with phosphate, nitrogen, ammonia, urea
unironically sourced from the Fertile Crescent
shipped via the Strait of Hormuz
because their forefathers, not foremothers, strip-mined the soil of Turtle Island, barren, a hundred years or more, ago

Continue reading “fawn” →