have you inhaled heated earth spoors exhaled by ancient forests? have your eyes trailed thick bark rivers, higher and higher, to beckon branches who ebb through canopy of sun-filtered leaves? you, a defenseless, green baby, crawl in our sacred room of your elders, only crests of massive, shined shoes under swaying shins visible. have you measured 3,000 years of history, other than our rings heaved to a slumped side? have you calculated one of us alone uses our toe’s roots to pull 300 gallons of soil’s nutrients up to our most revered leaves to alchemize into 400 cubic feet of oxygen? child, we are a grove of sentient wizards. have you heard of the girl, yes girl, who climbed into sister Luna, one of the largest in our family, marked with blue X of imminent destruction? she sat for a day, stayed for 738, as Luna gave consent as her sticky monkey feet gripped her syrupy limbs, to peer at forests within forests. moss, ferns, foxes, squirrels, banana slugs, spotted owls, mothers within Mother, as storms howled, as she sprouted a silver streak in 23-year-old hair, as men sent riotous helicopter blades to knock her out, megaphones to shout what they would do to her. the same they had done, the same they still do to us: assault, pillage, dominate, break. a lucidity is birthed in conditions as these, a clear mission, not of superheroes, but of those courageous enough to care, respect their elders, share the stories that will save our lives, know when to climb to the top, when to grip tightly, when to sit in stillness to tap into deep reserves of patience, to grow strong roots like us.
so, yes, superheroes.
This poem first appeared in When the River Speaks Anthology (2024).
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A. M. Hayden is Poet Laureate and Professor for Sinclair College. Her debut collection, American Saunter, released December 2024 (FlowerSong Press). Her first chapbook, How to Tie Tobacco, and second collection, Old World Wings, will be released in 2025 (Wild Ink Publishing). Hayden is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the 2023 River Heron Editor’s Choice Prize winner. She lives with her family and many furry rescue babies, including a very special blind, three-legged pup named Vinny Valentine.
