By Roxanne E. Bogart
I step outside to find the color of my day
beyond yellow or red or blue
science matters but it’s not the end game
for it’s the heart and gut that throb us into action
and that’s when I sense what has been calling—
wild voices beyond power:
aspen leaves hushing in wind
above shifting silt carried by downstream currents
as salmon destined to breed in natal stream beds
slice swiftly through them, after years maturing
in deep ocean waters.
It feels like years since small bare feet have shivered
on cool wetness of morning grass that comes now like a balm,
dissolving the critical brain, wonder breaking open beyond so many screens
the child’s eyes finally seeing the world, her nose finally smelling air
filled with the scented breath of birch and lilacs and ferns
until the body comes into second, third, fourth gear, and land opens up to the horizon
as the tingling sensation of presence spreads like sunlight piercing cirrus clouds
high-pitched cries of a broad-winged hawk sound from above the woods
as the field smiles with pale pink milkweed flowers
and the turquoise stream laughs me into the day.
Roxanne E. Bogart is a wildlife biologist and writer, whose first book of poetry, All That Sustains, was published by Off the Common Books in 2022. Her work has appeared in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Poetry Quarterly, Silkworm, among others. She is a member of the International League of Conservation Writers and Academy of American Poets. roxannebogart.com