By Pattiann Rogers
The slender checkered beetle, pale
earth brown, sallies forth from among
the bark canals of the oak, the eaten mar
of the woody gall left dying. Her spiny
yellow hairs sparkle in the summer sun.
Lacewings, locust, and laurel loosen
cocoon, carapace, and bud, shimmy out
and pause, airing wings expanding like rumpled
petals, spreading petals opening like slatted
wings, as they pass into the new world.
Toe by toe the children of the sun depart
from the east out of living fire to become
spikes, glumes, anthers, sheaves, broad
montane grassland, flowing steppe,
savannah, veld, wild horse pampas.
The fiddler crab with his royal blue
spot emerges beside the great charging
dawn of the morning sea, scuttles sideways
out of the drenched sands and savory
mud bank of the tidal marsh.
Now echoes in cougar lairs, snake crannies,
coon burrows, the hillside den of gray fox.
Moonrat's nose appears from the crevice
in the bluff, sniffing fish and wormy mud.
Turtle's beak shows at shell's edge first.
Claws and feet extend directly.
The smooth, golden-green swale
of the trout swivels upward, breaks
through the boundaries of sky
with its mouth wide open gulping day.
After parting the flap, after gripping
the knob, after lifting the latch, after kicking
the door until the hinges crack and fail
and the hindrance falls, then the jaunt,
the saunter, the sprint, the lope, the totter,
ramble and meander, the traipse and slink,
the shamble, shuffle, gallop and glide,
the push against the beyond begins.
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"This poem began one day when I overheard the phrase 'coming forth into view.' This phrase...seemed totally associated with the existence of life," Rogers told Poets.org. The resulting poem is my attempt to evoke that feeling by focus and place and by acknowledging a specific few members of the massive volume of life forms constantly coming forth, each and every one warriors against oblivion."
I had a very nice Tuesday -- chores in the morning, then lunch at Nordstrom Cafe with my friend Ellen, several hours of discussing mostly family and school stuff -- our older sons were in a baby group together, our younger children graduated from high school together -- with visits from my mother and her friend Margie, who also happened to be in the mall, and Anu, the mother of another of our younger childrens' classmates who was shopping when we left the cafe. I did no actual shopping in the mall!
It was a good TV night -- The Flash remains entertaining if quite retro, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did my absolute favorite episode with lots and lots of May and some lovely Coulson moments, and I absolutely adore Forever which makes me so sad that it's highly unlikely to get picked up, while the annoying Gotham just got a full season. And by trying not to jinx the Orioles by watching, I spared myself the horror of watching them lose. From Three Lakes Park in Richmond:
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