“I am tiny on the scale of sand and sea—but whether or not I am here to see them, it’s reassuring to think that, at any given time, somewhere beneath the rippling surface among the beds of seagrass, manatees graze. I’d like to think that Cumberland is a lesson in tenacity, but barrier islands have always been shaped by the sea in response to the elements. Now, I wonder, will they last?”
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“All summer, crowds have come to the canyon in steady currents, yet I’ve only felt small and solitary; deeply rooted is that particular form of loneliness that blooms in company. I kneel with the memory of your warm hand on my skin and unsown lands spread in my imagination. Every day I water and weed and watch the light change across striated stone blotted with juniper and cliff rose; formations I can put names to.”
Excerpt from my prose poem in Flyway‘s Winter 22-23 Outside Issue:
It’s easy now to forget about summer bearing down, the stories about fried eggs on the sidewalk. These are days I can believe each grey branch of the mesquite tree might be resurrected with spring leaves. And sometimes I think I don’t ask for so much—a lover who makes me feel wanted, creatures going about their own business, the potential for regeneration—and sometimes I think this is so much to ask for.
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“Can we celebrate the wild just beyond the doorstep without conflating it with the wildness of places far from any doors? If we expect the wild to adapt to our cities and our lifestyles, where do we adapt to theirs. We must leave space and silence and open places for them to build their own nests, make their own paths through the desert, and communicate with each other in whisper songs.“
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“He sounds like one of the mice that live in the house I will move to the first time I try to leave him, the ones I will set hard metal traps for in the kitchen. I will hear the bitter snap and squeak of them at night when I try to fall asleep but instead replay a recent conversation in which he tells me I am easy to love.”
I have a short triptych out today in Hobart.
Nell Smith 