An Answer
Poems
- The oldest lobster fisher in the world says she might as well keep doing it
- A Reckoning With Johnny Appleseed
- The sparrows (Once again, I was wrong)
- For the grandmother teaching the children how to plant seeds in the community garden
- Substitutions for Buttermilk
- Make Believe
- For the students
- An Answer
- Turtles at the Convention Center
- Spring Hatch
- On the evolution of shadows
An Answer
For days you have wondered
who is eating the leaves in the garden
broccoli, lettuce, beans,
ripped to the stem
you imagine it could be
slug, deer, raccoon, or earwig
then, sitting quietly and not thinking much,
you see the sparrows, smudged yellow on the forehead
they move from plant to plant,
beak off tender leaves,
swallow with a quick pulse at the throat
and suddenly, you can’t begrudge them, any of them.
Not the birds or the slugs, not an errant earwig.
The rains are late again,
there is so little green to live on.
Originally published in EcoTheo Review.
©2022 EMILIE LYGREN
