We push wild away, as if we can keep it
to tidy planters, hedges, walking paths,
as if, recently in Earth’s clock, we ourselves
were not prey, our stick and squish bodies stalked
by creatures desperate to feed their young.
Wild pushes back every moment.
Coyotes thrive in our cities, spiders patrol our homes,
plants cued to correct soil deficiencies spring up
where needed, though we call them weeds.
Our own beings less alive apart
from union we’re called to with every in-breath,
every mouthful, every primal need we obscure
behind window and door, inside clothes and shoes.
Even warm spring air’s aroma is a body rush,
so fecund it calls to the aliveness we miss.
This is the organic compound geosmin,
a deep earthy smell made by soil-dwelling microbes.
We are more sensitive to this scent
than a shark is to blood. Lift your nose, breathe,
let the wind tell you what it knows.
This poem first appeared in Portals (Middle Creek, 2021).
—
Laura Grace Weldon lives in a township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, serves as Braided Way editor, and chronically maxes out her library card. Laura was Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books.
