[caged tigers . . .]

caged tigers

marking territory—

they too

believe the world

belongs to them

Atlas Poetica 11, March 2012

Litany of the Nearly Lost

Listen:  their names

carry news of the places they live:

Tooth Cave spider and Virgin River chub,

Red Hills salamander and Bliss Rapids snail,

Eureka Valley primrose and Lost River sucker.

Maybe once, before they vanish,

they will rise up out of their subterranean

caves, come down from islands

in the sky, leave forest pools and relict

prairies, leaping, swimming, sidling,

soaring, scattering seeds and petals

over the knotted highways

and into the halls of Congress—

the map turtles leading the way.

Tumbling Creek cavesnail.

Kneeland Prairie pennygrass.

Peter’s Mountain mallow.

Delhi Sands flower-loving fly.

Slithering, sliding, crawling, gliding,

let them come, singing with one voice

This land is our land—

Let it not vanish away.

Laguna Mountain skipper. 

Ash Meadows sunray, Salt Creek tiger beetle.

Santa Catalina Island fox.

Written River 3:1, summer 2012

[meeting the eyes . . .]

meeting the eyes

of a captive maned wolf—

sharing

a taste for watermelon,

the prospect of extinction

Atlas Poetica 11,  March 2012

[so many tickets . . .]

so many tickets

to foreign lands

when will we travel

the inside passage

of the heart

Moonbathing 6, spring/summer 2012
AHA: The Anthology, 2012