Another World
Stand at your window and enumerate the cosmic slop. The peonies the butterfly bush the gold medal rose the bee with his pollen gauchos. All from another world. The tree that grew in Brooklyn is murdering creeks in Sacramento. The rings of synchronized starlings the worms constructing the every blade of grass. Each bit a metastatic dream. The cars zipping the water tower collecting the college students harassing the unhoused happy hour. The mural reimagining our white history on the side of the parking garage. The neon names the greasy pizza the sidewalks the strung lights crisscrossing Main. The bartender on her walk home looking over her shoulder. The man in the black mask in the gray van parked outside the library. The books and the words within. The moon with its golf balls and flags competing. Nanoplastics in the stream. Misshaped red cells leaking oxygen in cluttered lanes. The President standing in the sun. The leaves the porch the girl scout delivering thin mints. Plovers and sand dunes and little worn pieces of glass washing ashore. Me. You. Every stranger in every strange place. The boat on the horizon. The horizon. The the.
Michael Rogner is a restoration ecologist, self-taught poet, and husband battling stage IV cancer. His work appears or is forthcoming in Willow Springs, Bellingham Review, Rhino Poetry, Stonecoast Review, Moon City Review, and elsewhere.
This poem began as a meditation on the invasive plant and wildlife species displacing native species everywhere I look. It's impossible to write about invasive species without writing about humans, the most destructive species of all.
This poem began as a meditation on the invasive plant and wildlife species displacing native species everywhere I look. It's impossible to write about invasive species without writing about humans, the most destructive species of all.