Hello Friends,
It’s Earth Day, so we’re reading “I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth” by Fatimah Asghar, which was first published as a Poem-a-Day on poets.org in 2019. You may notice echoes from the previous two days’ poems, “This Spring” by James A. Pearson and “Memory Poem” by Marlanda Dekine.
Thank you again for celebrating poetry month with me.
— Ællen
It’s Earth Day, so we’re reading “I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth” by Fatimah Asghar, which was first published as a Poem-a-Day on poets.org in 2019. You may notice echoes from the previous two days’ poems, “This Spring” by James A. Pearson and “Memory Poem” by Marlanda Dekine.
Thank you again for celebrating poetry month with me.
— Ællen
I Don’t Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We’ve Done to the Earth
so I count my hopes: the bumblebees
are making a comeback, one snug tight
in a purple flower I passed to get to you;
your favorite color is purple but Prince’s
was orange & we both find this hard to believe;
today the park is green, we take grass for granted
the leaves chuckle around us; behind
your head a butterfly rests on a tree; it’s been
there our whole conversation; by my old apartment
was a butterfly sanctuary where I would read
& two little girls would sit next to me; you caught
a butterfly once but didn’t know what to feed it
so you trapped it in a jar & gave it to a girl
you liked. I asked if it died. you say you like
to think it lived a long life. yes, it lived a long life.
■
so I count my hopes: the bumblebees
are making a comeback, one snug tight
in a purple flower I passed to get to you;
your favorite color is purple but Prince’s
was orange & we both find this hard to believe;
today the park is green, we take grass for granted
the leaves chuckle around us; behind
your head a butterfly rests on a tree; it’s been
there our whole conversation; by my old apartment
was a butterfly sanctuary where I would read
& two little girls would sit next to me; you caught
a butterfly once but didn’t know what to feed it
so you trapped it in a jar & gave it to a girl
you liked. I asked if it died. you say you like
to think it lived a long life. yes, it lived a long life.
■