Ecopoetics
i.m. Jack Collom, 1931-2017
Less ego, no cynicism.
Be kind to starlings
& Finches & itinerant
Redbreasts & warblers
Who flower the air &
Ear. Do not err
In simplicity, but embrace
The wild panoply—
The range of
Seeing & living &
Dying, yes. Don’t
Mourn, but revel
In summer’s lushness. Be
A song pollinator
In the mad rush of waking.
Attend to the pinnate, the
Mossy, the rooted
The alluvial & riverine
Conditions of this messy
Life which abounds
By creekbanks & runnels
By hilltops & rivulets
By the murmurs of weather &
Its polyglot botany
Its grace of empurpled
Ripeness rife with
Bounty, with ringing &
Singing in afternoon
Light. Attend to
Our mammalian neighbors
Herbivorous or predatory
Who mewl or bark
Growl or cry
Round our environs
Under the sky
Amid the extremes &
Slices gone by
In all weather &
This turning about
& Going, in this going
On, despite life
Being more meager— even
With sparrows rushing—
Now that you, dear human
Are no longer here.
—Mark DuCharme
published in “Poetics of the More-Than-Human World”
a special issue of Dispatches from the Poetry Wars (2020)
and forthcoming in an anthology of that name (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020)
