For weeks
Stripped tree trunks like the fingers of dead giants defying the ground,
accusing the neighbors,
bark and skin shedding shame across the yard.
You didn’t have the foresight
when you plotted your red blueprints,
your foundations in the dirt,
rioted into decades of cresting tsunami roots,
that once nourished the needles
paintbrush-tips the branches upon which
the owl used to perch
and lull its call into the predawn distances.
Remember?
Across peaceful highway bifurcations
breathe the other sibling-trees,
still in defiance of the sudden sin-rent edges.
The leaves’ confusion—
every stolen trilling twilight whoooooo moment
turned trillion exponential why—
bleeds into the expanses of ash carcass sadness,
the burn scars screaming beyond the sky,
drowning out the fractured owl-song
that was meant to woo the other life forms
hovering between the twigs and starbeams
poised waiting to teach you to tesseract.
—
Lauren Renee Frausto is an enthusiastic inter-disciplinarian in her creative and academic pursuits, with a focus on the combination of science and poetry in both realms. Her poetry, written for the page and the microphone, is influenced by her dedication to her work in research, education, writing practices, and intersectional feminism. She is excited to create and collaborate at such intersections as STEM and the humanities, science and literature, and technology and art. Additionally, she values incorporating science fiction and the speculative into art and scholarship. She is a senior editor for the art and science journal Consilience and a returning fellow at Creature Conserve, a wildlife conservation nonprofit that nurtures art and science collaborations. Her recent science writing can be found in New Plains Review and Yemassee.
