and the rangeland knows the feel of sporadic rain
knows how to open its pores when primed
knows how to stir up seedbanks in the mud
medleys of dead plants long dried
and the forest knows of slow retribution
knows how to overcome itself in succession
of nitrogenous rock fissured by lichen
to be guzzled by giants
knows how to suspend gnawed tunnels
riddled with beetled ache
in slow saccharine
and the kelp bed knows something of resilience
knows how to withstand urchin mouths
knows how to be marble in a bowl
that oscillates when jostled
but returns, inevitably, to the bowl’s center
where I fail as a lover
people lover, earth lover, lover at equilibrium
I thrive as a poet
how the brushfire enriches soil for green-up
how the traveling invasive plant finds safety
in warehouse lots or sidewalk cracks
how my poetry is extracted from the wanting
of love disturbed
how I learn to adapt and fill
the spaces you vacated
—
Lara Volski is interested in the reciprocal influence of people and animals on each other. As a poet and wildlife ecologist, she seeks to understand how people’s beliefs and values determine the composition of ecosystems and how ecosystems in turn make us who we are. Lara is a PhD student in the People and Wildlife Lab at the University of Washington, where she studies the management of large and controversial carnivores in the western United States.
