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