If you look closely enough, a tortoise is as magnificent as a tiger
– Joel Sartore, author, Photo Ark
Knoxville Zoo a long way from Madagascar where the golden tortoise lives safely in captivity. No wildfires. No poachers. No high-end pet trade. Its gold carapace covered with a matrix of pentagons. A plough-shaped appendage under its neck. In Isaiah 2:4, the prophet urges people to beat their swords into ploughshares and learn war no more. More than 60 years ago the Soviet Union gifted the United Nations with the sculpture standing on the grounds today, depicting a man doing just that. Critically endangered. Functionally extinct in the wild. Prefers bamboo-scrub habitat. Endangered too. World’s rarest tortoise. Rare as peace.
—
Joan White’s poems have been published in Cider Press Review, NPR’s On Being blog, Abstract Magazine, and Burningword Literary Journal, among others. A practicing Zen Buddhist for more than thirty years, she is a student at the Vermont Zen Center where she edits the publication, Walking Mountains, and offers seasonal workshops in haiku. She draws inspiration for her poetry from working in the garden, wandering in the woods and wetlands, and reading about space/time. Joan holds an MS in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; her thesis was published in the Journal of Alternative Agriculture.
