You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World - Softcover

Donika Kelly is the author of The Renunciations, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary, the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a Kate Tufts Discovery Award. A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and founding member of the collective Poets at the End of the World. She currently lives in Iowa City, where she teaches creative writing the University of Iowa.

WHEN THE FACT OF YOUR GAZE MEANS NOTHING, THEN YOU ARE TRULY ALONGSIDE

late spring wind sounds an ocean through new leaves. later the same wind sounds a tide. later still the dry

sound of applause: leaves chapped falling, an ending. this is a process. the ocean leaping out of ocean

should be enough. the wind pushing the water out of itself; the water catching the light

should be enough. I think this on the deck of one boat
then another. I think this

in the Salish, thought it in Stellwagen in the Pacific. the water leaping
looks animal, looks open mouthed,

looks toothed and rolling; the ocean an animal full of other animals.

what I am looking for doesn’t matter. that I am looking doesn’t matter.
I exert no meaning.

a juvenile bald eagle eats a harbor seal’s placenta. its head still brown.

this is a process. the land jutting out, seals hauled out, the white-headed eagles lurking

ready to take their turn at what’s left. the lone sea otter on its back,
toes flopped forward and curled;

Friday Harbor: the phone booth
the ghost snare of a gray whale’s call; an orca’s tooth in an orca’s skull

mounted inside the glass box. remains. this is a process.
three river otters, two adults, a pup,

roll like logs parallel to the shore. two doe, three fawns. a young buck stares, its antlers new, limned gold

in sunset. then the wind again: a wave through leaves green with deep summer, the walnut’s

green husk. we are alive in a green crashing world. soon winter.
the boat forgotten. the oceans,

their leaping animal light, off screen. past. future. this is a process. the eagles at the river’s edge cluster

in the bare tree. they steal fish
from ducks. they eat the hunter’s discards: offal and lead. the juveniles

practice fighting, their feet tangle midair before loosing. this
is a process. where they came from.

for how long will they stay.
that I am looking doesn’t matter. I will impose no meaning.

Joy Harjo is the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, and a member of the Muscogee Nation; she is also the author of ten books of poetry, seven music albums, two memoirs, and several plays and children’s books. Her honors include Yale’s 2023 BollingenPrize for American Poetry, a National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize,a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, the chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.

EAT

Grasshoppers devoured the sunflowers Petal by petal to raggedy yellow flags— Squash blossoms of small suns blessed
By dew drops flared beauty in the morning Until an army of squash bugs landed

And ate, then dragged their bellies From the carnage—
Field mice chewed their way
Into the house. They eat anything Sweet and leave their pebbled shit
In staggered lines to the closet door— Hungry tree frogs clung to the screen Their curled tongues catch anything With wings driven to the light—

We found a snake hidden on the porch, There were rumors in the yard
Of fat mice frolicking here.
The night is swallowing

Daylight.
We sit down to eat.