Hello All!
This is my first attempt at sending audio out on Substack. Because the sounds of poetry are so important, I want to use this feature of the platform to revisit some of the poems I’ve sent out. If there is interest in this format I might start to include recordings of every poem and even expand beyond just reading the poems to include analysis or other content in audio form. If you have feedback or recommendations please reply to this email or comment on this post. I’ve copied the poems I’m reading below for your reference.
As a reminder, I would love to hear my poems read in your voice as well. Most phones have a very good voice memo app or something similar which makes it easy to record your favorite poem from The Naturalist and email it to me at micahluedtke@gmail.com. If you aren’t feeling so bold, but still want to hear your favorite Naturalist poems read, send me an email and tell which ones you want to hear! Be well.
Eagle looks down with hungry eyes,
searching through leaves and stone,
existing above all else, regal and thin.
World fades into its parts:
There is smoke and water
and nothing else.
Five thousand generations
of wings and dance,
unnumbered new beaks
from speckled shells,
countless hairs made nests.
The forest has changed
and the fish in the sea
make new circles,
the birds must trace.
Their verses change,
but they still sing
about all the same things.
We would call it flying,
but the Neutrino is still.
It watches the universe—
spinning around in a frozen blur,
everything that ever lived,
pandas and dinosaurs and plague,
pass all at once and forever—
it doesn’t feel a thing.
I have been a tree
for one hundred fifty years
made strong in millennium of family,
loam and fungus.
I was my parents’ dream
when you came to this place stumbling,
the forest floor was dark.
By curse or grace,
I sprouted.
Poetry Reading #1