On the second episode, I read the Untitled series. This series has been spread out over several months (the first was Poem #9!), so it was really great to read them all together. I have have copied the text below so you can read along and linked the titles to the original posts.
Don’t forget to record your favorite Naturalist poems to have them featured here at the end of National Poetry Month or check out these other ways to celebrate. You can email a recording of yourself reading one of my poems to micahluedtke@gmail.com.
If you enjoy The Naturalist, please consider sharing this poetry reading with others!
Windy weeks on the coast
pushed out by snowstorm
then again the bitter cold.
Our hands form heat chambers
around our nose and mouth
and smoke like tiny chimneys.
The breaths limp frozen up
to join the low hanging clouds
that glow above the city at night.
One long yellow stripe across the sky.
Carefully searching for a moment
of joy to have to yourself
somewhere among the alders
just after morning or nightfall
looking under every rock.
Pressed flowers in this book
are a funny window into springtime
looking out by the light of the fireplace.
They were never meant to last this long,
you were suppose to find them—poor wildflowers,
they have never seen the cold like this,
haven’t seen snow before, they don’t even know
which month pulls the red leaves down from the maple.
After the birds quiet down
for their midmorning roost
and the last song is over—
only then do shadows play,
sneaking through windows
in the very tired house.
The glinting vase of cinnamon
is alone on the kitchen table,
showing off for no one.
Untitled #5
Crowds of starlings stand
with idling wings ignoring
the bluejay mischief above.
They occasionally swirl up,
knee high like cold cream
falling in clear tea. There is no
sugar in the tea or real threat
to the starlings and so a new
arrangement is agreed upon:
some birds move into the bush
or away to find different seed.
The cup is white and filled
with amber liquid and cooling,
unperturbed despite all the chattering.
There are so many chipmunks
playing despite the steady rain
in this part of the woods, cars too
and long black stripes of pavement.
Along the water the ducks still land
as they have for so many years,
but now they dine on bread.
I love the smell of wet leaves.
Maybe the part of me that hungers,
for meat and cookies and peace, knows
deep down what this damp matter will become
when it decays.
Twenty pine cones gathered
at the feet of a young pine,
huddled together for warmth
among the ice cold due drops of morning.
Maybe the wind invited them to meet
or some brown-furred and fastidious creature
had a moment of fleeting aesthetic choice.
I read somewhere the cones grow legs
in the middle of the night and come together
to talk about their dreams.
She can be found in the soil
nibbling plant matter
or washing on the shore at night
with luminescent glow.
She is the tallest tree in the forest
year after year after year
and every day she falls to the floor,
raises a civilization of millipedes.
She comes from the sky and crawls
down the mountain pass to desiccate farms,
picks the salmon from the river
with her talons.
Poetry Reading #2