This Preserve (poem)
This Preserve
And the starling, though despised, prefers to say:
“This preserve is not my native place.”
The man who cares for nature leads
Keeping a two-fingered grip on his zoom lens
His Sibley in his armpit
A lost wax welcoming grimace
On the donor’s plaque seldom read
Only when the bus is late, a heavy tread
On the path of rubber tires
This preserve, a zoo for the roadside possum
Papilio glaucus, Monarda fistulosa
Mosquitoes banished from standing water
Untrue the cuckoo had visited that year
Starved for the missing woolly bear
The treetop birds are not well counted
Their ranks by song extrapolated
Numbering the years’ unanswered cries
Unless he gains the edge in a game of throw-down
No one will take the trouble
To set this parching acreage aside
Even now, behind the ridge the shale quarry
Suggests new enterprise; the children’s duck pond
Bubbles with yellow algae
One hiker tosses scraps from a hero bun
His pal wings shingles of the flat blue stone
Each time the ducklings wobble in
He narrates this event on his phone
“That’s it. Whoa. Watch out.”
This Preserve
The Cause
(2016, Stephanie Foster)
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