The dead gave their last blood to birds:
cardinals, red-winged blackbirds, and the downy woodpecker,
red-capped, persistent,
extracting food from trees in small portions
in every season. Deer browse fairways, medians, and kitchen gardens.
More real estate is parceled, so
more roads flood fields and woods.
Shores erupt in built things that have never held a seed.
And citylight falls over us like flames.
On the beach where waves arrive,
caddis worms gather forest litter into cloaks, then creep
almost invisible, into fresh water
where fish rise from the bottom and eat
what they need and when, a great lake flowing coolly over
them and under them and through.
This poem first appeared in A Fine Canopy (2020).
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Alison Swan was born in Detroit and shaped indelibly by Michigan’s two peninsulas, Florida’s southern tip, and Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. She has written or edited several books, including A Fine Canopy which was shortlisted for a Poetry Medal from Independent Publisher (IPPY), and recommended highly by Orion magazine, which published an excerpt from her long poem “River Mouth” in the Autumn 2024 issue. Cornerstone Press will publish her next book of poems. A Mesa Refuge fellow, she taught eco-literature at Western Michigan University for many years.
