24 - trinity

By Gary M. Stolz/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Macrochelys
           temminckii
           apalachicolae
           suwanniensis
13 million years diverged

cracks of southern
geography form
churches steepled with
rocks and riverbanks

this is the holy mystery

a triptych built
of shell, beak, and bone

----
[If you haven't heard the news, a few days ago National Geographic (and many other outlets) reported on a study that reveals that the alligator snapping turtle is actually three species, each geographically-based. While this discovery does have some sad implications that highlight the importance of protecting these creatures, it is nonetheless exciting. Three turtles! Regarding the 13 million years date, there are a range of dates for the species' divergence; for artistic purposes (hey, I'm allowed), I've gone with the oldest date (which is technically 13.4, but that didn't fit the line as well).]

23 - windshield

[I recently moved all my creative writing onto my new computer and while doing so found this unposted poem. I don't remember when exactly I wrote it, but it was sometime in 2013 and on a Friday, since I remember writing it just before a drum lesson. It was inspired by this Huffington Post article about a picture posted to Reddit of a turtle that had gone through a car windshield. The turtle reportedly survived and the picture is not as gruesome as it sounds, but out of respect for more sensitive readers, I won't post the picture here. It's in the link.] 
---

isn’t that the way it

always happens –

every life

every death

every

epiphany that will make you

decide to move to

another continent

you

are crossing the street and

thinking of nothing in

particular,

not because you

are callous and don’t care about

climate change or healthcare or the rising cost

of education, but because

your brain, though older

than all of these things

has never

evolved to share such

concerns –

nor needed to

so you

are crossing the street, thinking

of nothing in particular

only smelling the

dandelions you

will devour

in some immeasurable

future,

knowing

without knowing that

a river waits

for you, several

minutes yet ahead

and it will welcome you with

cool and rushing arms

and a great

roaring thing for which

you have no name

charges,

makes contact with

your body

and send you into

the air

for a moment

you mimic your ancient cousin, who

from the same

scaly ancestor took

to the sky and not

the river

you know this cousin

you know what you

are not

and then there is

the embrace of a

pane of glass

The cracks that

make a halo around

your body

are as waves

in blue

water

22 - yolk

I eat

my mother’s words

long before they

are given voice

deep within

her innards where

they are formed

I lie curled and

waiting

belly to

(egg)

belly

we exchange

subtle privacies

we speak of dirt

and deforestation

foreign things

I

eat my mother’s words

her

shuffling grunts

the

hiss of watercress on

her tongue

a yellow universe

opens

within the crack

(her great body’s footsteps

long receded)

I will swallow the last word and

u n b e n d 

---

(First Shelled Life poem of 2013! I've neglected this project so badly. For anyone concerned, this marginated tortoise hatchling isn't deformed; it's just newly hatched. It's been living off that yolk sac while in the egg, and in the days following the hatch, it will absorb the yolk and its plastron will harden. I've found conflicting credits on this photo, so I'm not sure which is correct. For what it's worth, Wikipedia credits Richard Mayer.)

21 - strange bedfellows

a thing

of different

flesh

a shell

to read the runes

of the back

foot gripping

rock weight pulling

across a landscape

of strange and peachy skin

not one of you

hold close

it is

so very warm here

20 - size matters

an empty pocket

lo(o)se change

mixing in

a gutter

previously spent

on clean water

 

Rule Britannia

for only 20p, a
copy of a queen

dwarfed by

monarch Windsor
monarch butterfly

but

in time the backwidens

the claws

harden

in time

an island grows

up from a stone.

(Notes: After working with some fantastic poets at Loughborough this year, I'm playing around with shape and other visual elements in poetry.)

19 - eye

rising
orange sun

the eye
a pre-history
a pre-hieroglyph

a cycle of days and nights
primordial ocean
ancient mud

a dark and heavy thing rises
sinks claw and beak
into lesser flesh

between grasping jaws
a record
that which is not swallowed
becomes fossil
and the eye
pre-dates
and continues.



(I realized this one has similar language to last week's poem for Audrey, the awesome RES, and I'll chock that up to the fact that one of my favorite things about turtles is their timelessness, the fact that they predate so many other creatures, including man himself. That timeless nature is particularly evident, I feel, in their eyes, which, regardless of how cute we may find some modern-day turtles, have never lost that old reptilian look that so sets them apart.

No idea where the image came from, and TinEye had nothing on it.)

18 – bucket (for Audrey)

to suffer
the shape of

abjection
to suffer
the form deformed
the spine bent into a bowl
that might collect
all twenty years

cloying of egg whites
about the tongue
to suffer
the taste

bucket daughter
who spells
with every bend of her arm
a long long history

Water writes
that history into her back
like a stone.




(Pictured above is Audrey, a female red eared slider who, as anyone can see, is severely deformed. According to information from the folks at Little RES Q, a Canada-based reptile rescue and rehab facility, Audrey suffered terrible neglect at the hands of her previous owners, who kept her in an unheated, unfiltered bucket with no UVA/B lighting for twenty years. In addition to her horrible living conditions, during those twenty years Audrey received only egg whites to eat. She currently lives at Little RES Q, where she receives the care she needs and deserves. Photo used with permission of Little RES Q.

Loads more pictures of Audrey, some of which showcase the shape her forelegs can make to her shell deformity, can be found at Little RES Q's Facebook page. )