Abide

Luisa A. Igloria

Nov 5

On the radio I heard a naturalist say           if she were to meet her death from an animal  encounter, she would rather it be a large         snake—boa constrictor, for example.   To be emptied of breath, to pass out          en route to inhabiting your own cathedral   of absence—you're told it's a romance         you hardly have a chance at authorship.  But what does the thunder say as it wakes         blind spores springing up out of ash-  covered soil; out of dead, splintered wood         as clouds roll in, heavy with rain? Inside   the corn and bean, radicles curl up before growing          downward to anchor the seed. In the end   or in the beginning, nothing vacates the world         forever. Salt sifts and turns to spume, and spume  to rain. In the highest bell towers, kestrel and swift          build nests with every dry and discarded thing.