I can’t help it. I’m a poet intoxicated in springtime, renewal and faith. Step aside, war and riot, prejudice run amok, mass shootings and atmospheric rivers, ignorance abroad and becoming endemic. Step aside, the ruin of the world — it’s like the ruin of winter. And I am a fervent believer in humanity and spring. Evrywhere, I find evidence to back up my faith. To celebrate (before the next bomb cyclone drops on our heads tonight), here’s one of my favorite poems, the one that kicked off the idea to collect my poems into my first book.
EARTH WHALE
— For Jim
The soil surges with elusive tides.
By my apartment an oak dives
head first into a hidden sea
while bird chatter rattles the sk
The oak sings to me when it pleases.
From its black flanks and branches
come disturbing lullabies
and simple songs of white breezes.
The oak’s dismantling sighs
Roar below the city surface
from deep in evolutionary gloom
the depths where fire flowers
and magma pearls bloom.
Oak notes quake the planet
as continents cross its face.
The poles shift in a vast rhythm
of history being erased.
The oak hears beyond time
and dives for song, headlong.
On its tossing tail alight
generations of lives in flight.
Rachel Dacus, Earth Lessons (Time Fold Books, 2021)