Poem-A-Day April 22: Ask me if I speak for the nautilus

Hello Friends,
It’s Earth Day, so we’re going to listen to Camille T. Dungy speak for the nautilus today.
<3 ellen


Characteristics of Life

A fifth of animals without backbones could be at risk of extinction, say scientists.
— BBC Nature News


Ask me if I speak for the snail and I will tell you
I speak for the snail.
          speak of underneathedness
and the welcome of mosses,
               of life that springs up,
little lives that pull back and wait for a moment.

I speak for the damselfly, water skeet, mollusk,
the caterpillar, the beetle, the spider, the ant.
                    I speak
from the time before spinelessness was frowned upon.

Ask me if I speak for the moon jelly. I will tell you
          one thing today and another tomorrow
     and I will be as consistent as anything alive
on this earth.

          I move as the currents move, with the breezes.
What part of your nature drives you? You, in your cubicle
ought to understand me. I filter and filter and filter all day.

Ask me if I speak for the nautilus and I will be silent
as the nautilus shell on a shelf. I can be beautiful
and useless if that’s all you know to ask of me.

Ask me what I know of longing and I will speak of distances
     between meadows of night-blooming flowers.
                    I will speak
          the impossible hope of the firefly.

               You with the candle
burning and only one chair at your table must understand
     such wordless desire.

To say it is mindless is missing the point.

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