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Convolutions

Posted in ecology, family, poetry, tagged Beth Copeland, Bill Griffin, ecology, I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart, imagery, nature photography, nature poetry, NC Poets, poetry, Redhawk Publications, Southern writing on August 8, 2025| 6 Comments »

[with 3 poems by Beth Copeland]

Fog

Morning fog erases the mountain and trees.

No, not an erasure but unseen.

Not an erasure but unseen.

The mountain, the laurel still green.

Unlike the mountain and laurel still green,

the dearly departed lie beneath white sheets.

The deer depart beneath white sheets

of fog, stepping into a forgotten dream

of fog slipping into a forgotten dream

the ghost mountain dreams.

The ghost mountain dreams.

Crows fly to pines on mascara wings.

Crows fly to pines on mascara wings,

mourning. Fog erases the mountain, the trees.

Beth Copeland

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It’s a big web, here in the corner of our screened porch, but I’m not ready yet to broom it down. The spider is a jointed dried kernel in its center; when I blow, she doesn’t twitch. I don’t see an egg pouch or spiderlings. The strands are not an orb but a diffuse tangle, a chaos of delicate angles and tensions — a miniature of filaments revealed by the background microwave radiation that weave the structure of our entire universe. And what are they made of, those filaments? These I can see before me are nanometer reworkings of hemolymph from mosquitoes denied the opportunity to bite me. Most visible when dusted with pollen. A mess. But I and my broom are not ready yet to offend, to say farewell to the tribe of spiders.

Last week we visited Blue Whales with our grandson, turning eight. The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh is hosting this exhibit of the largest creatures that have ever lived on our planet – the mystery of their migrations, language, culture; the vital interconnections between their diet of krill, their massive enriching orange poop, and the entire deep ocean ecology. Linda and I stood in silence before the model of a blue whale brain and a model of our own. The whale’s is twice as large and twice as complex, convoluted with its twisting gyri and deep sulci. Surely such an abundance of neurons and synapses must create thoughts as complex as our own. Or more so. And yet blue whales struggle to survive as a species in a world degraded by human beings. I am thinking of that brain and I am not ready yet to say farewell to the tribe of whales.

Chapel Hill cartoonist Keith Knight draws a weekly panel titled (th)ink. Today’s is a portrait of and quotation by James Baldwin (1924-1987): “To be a Negro in this country & to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” Human being who is relatively conscious, choose your own rage focal point du jour – human beings caged like animals in a Florida concentration camp; children intentionally starved to advance a particular political agenda; boosting fossil fuels burned to appease a few billionaires; an ocean filled with plastic nanoparticles and deafening human vibrations where blue whales may soon be extinct? Some days I feel like I am not ready to go on living. Some days I am more than ready to say goodbye to the tribe of humans. In a few years I will depart as an inhabitant of planet Earth. Some years after that the last memory of my having been an inhabitant will finally depart as well. On that day, will any whales still remain to swim the depths? Will any love between humans remain, or any love for other creatures? I am not ready yet to answer.

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October Valentine

A heart-shaped leaf spied in the weeds on my walk

down the hill to the mailbox. I didn’t see a redbud tree

on the roadside, so it must have lifted on the wind

and dropped – a gift! – near my feet. Is it a message

from someone I love – my sweet mother in a halo of light,

my father singing the names of trees in his strong baritone?

Or is it from someone I’ve never seen and may never meet?

As I hike up the hill, I tuck the leaf in my pocket, rubbing it

with my thumb – as if I could read it – skin to skin – by osmosis.

Halfway home, I stop to study it. Cerise with splotches of green,

dark spots, a wormhole bored like a bullet wound, a battered

heart, like yours, like mine, but maybe its scars make it more

beautiful than before. My friends, there’s still so much

love in this world even when you’re alone.

Beth Copeland

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Is it strange for me to be toying with despair while reading a book of healing and love like Beth Copeland’s I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart? Actually, if you’re not toying with despair you are the strange one. Give grudging thanks, though. Thank the stars and the mysterious hemlocks and the dark fecund earth that in a world full of rage and despair there are poems like Beth Copeland’s. These poems know the feeling of being lost in endless night. These poems have been battered, they have fallen, they have doubted plenty of times whether there is any wholeness or healing available to them, but these poems stand up to testify, My friends, there’s still so much love in this world even when you’re alone.

Often I tell myself it is ridiculous to imagine that any sort of inner peace is possible. I have my share of personal regrets and ongoing grief, and even though I’m tempted to look around and envy those people who don’t, when I’m really honest I admit that no one escapes whipping. But peace can’t be a wall built around my sadness – walls keep more things in than out. Despair is inevitable. How foolish is it, then, and how strange, to spend a few hours with a book of words arranged in lines on paper and discover the tightness in my throat is easing? The mountain has rested in one place for 480 million; today its peak is less than a third of its height when it was first thrust up in the big crunch. Does it reflect on loss and diminishment, or does it find peace in the weight of its daily being? Am I inflamed and scarred by the revelations of Beth Copeland’s battles and pain, or am I grateful for her gratitude and strengthened by her strength?

The tribe of human beings seems determined to destroy itself. The tribe of human beings seems determined to link arms and hearts in love. Perhaps discovering a moment of beauty is not a cowardly attempt to escape dire reality – perhaps it is the only thing capable of healing us.

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Explore REDHAWK Publications, including Beth Copeland’s I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart and Shibori Blue: Thirty-Six Views of the Peak HERE.

Sample poems from Shibori Blue at Verse & Image HERE.

More information about the North Carolina Museum of Nature Sciences HERE.

Dive into the K Chronicles with Keith Knight HERE.

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My Daughter Paints a Mountain

She wasn’t thinking as her brush swept

across canvas in wave-length strokes,

channeling a crest she’d never seen,

while I was still in the Sandhills

where there aren’t any hills, just fields

of cotton, soybeans, and cedar stumps

in swamp water, sleeping on an air mattress

in a small apartment with prints and paintings

propped against walls instead of hung,

newly separated, newly sober, living

between the husband and home I’d left

and a haven I hadn’t found yet.

*****

As I drove up a steep road to see a house

in the Blue Ridge, a large buck leapt

in front of the car to welcome me,

and I knew I’d found my new home.

I didn’t know the mountain seen at the top

of the hill was the mountain she’d painted

months before, and she didn’t know I’d move

to that house with a view of the mountain

she’d painted as if in a dream or fugue.

How could her mountain – purple, lavender,

pink, and forest green swirled to a peak

with white streak of snow against a blue sky –

mirror the one framed in my window?

Was it coincidence or synchronicity

that the mountain in her mind’s

eye was more map than metaphor?

It was a message from the universe:

You’re home. Open the door.

Beth Copeland

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Spring. Whatever.

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, Imagery, tagged Bill Griffin, Ecopoetry, haiku, imagery, Jacar Press, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, nature, nature photography, nature poetry, NC Poets, poetry, Southern writing on May 9, 2025| 2 Comments »

[with 3 poems by Kathryn Kirkpatrick]

Turbulence

Of the stomach lifting. Of the weightless

where I was and am again variety.

Sway and crack, our craft. Slalom

the wind. So much carbon in the currents.

Of the climate kind. Of the jerk and twack.

Of the hurtling toward. Shake right out

of our human. As if we might not

settle back into these bodies,

but land instead in someone else.

Yet the hare far below isn’t empty

to receive us. Neither is the horse.

They have their own embodied plans.

We will have to settle beside ourselves

Blurred boundaries and all. Bump,

rattle, and creak. Our enlightened selves

grasp cokes, play solitaire, read, sleep,

going on as if what’s happening isn’t.

With more than prayers

holding us up, we are nonetheless

tossed in the vastness.

Kathryn Kirkpatrick

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ah spring spring

how great is spring!

and so on

Bashō (1644-1694)

Basho has perfectly snared my mood this morning. I am reading Spring haiku at SeasonWords.com: Ah, Winter vanquished!, Ah, new life!, blah, blah, blah. I am not feeling newly lively these days, especially not as the sun so gaily rises. By day I seem to be the rock between two storms, my father and my son, but by 4 AM I have eroded to sand and the bed is far too gritty for sleep. Now this haiku blog offers a prompt for the season and encourages sharing? Here are my Spring lines:

what to say

when everyone’s “spring, spring” –

toads trilling

In her book Haiku and Senryu: A Simple Guide for All, Charlotte Digregorio states, Wherever one lives, one experiences changing seasons. The haiku’s brief flash illuminates one specific moment. We read the terse lines and might recognize where we are, but certainly, and more critically, we do know precisely when we are. Perhaps we have never shared the haiku’s circumscribed space, but we do share the time of pollen, the humidity, crisp crackling leaves, the shivers. A moment’s experience broadens into a communal truth.

In that sense, haiku becomes less an instruction in encountering nature and more an invitation to shared humanity. Besides the experience of changing seasons, the thing we all share is the experience of suffering. A moment’s observation may stand in as a piercing metaphor: Spring’s anticipation, Summer’s lassitude, Autumn’s anxiety, Winter’s dread. And perhaps pricked by that dart of connection upon reading a haiku, we might also share one more thing – joy.

Just to be fair, I imagine my Spring haiku is not really an indictment of inane people chattering around me. On a dark night after rain, the lonesome trill of an American toad rising from down in the woods is a peace offering. My son and I stood on the deck last night and heard it together. Yes, it was very dark. This morning, light has returned. Again. Oh my. The season rolls on.

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In 1685, the Japanese astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai adapted the 24 Solar Terms of the Chinese calendar for Japan and created 72 seasons. As we learn at SeasonWords.com, these 72 seasons “offer a poetic journey through the Japanese year in which the land awakens and blooms with life and activity before returning to slumber.” Mark, the site’s curator and naturalist, shares lessons from nature corresponding to the seasons; haiku both ancient and modern that complement the lesson; and craft tips / kigo with a prompt and an invitation. Readers share their haiku and receive commentary.

Visit https://seasonwords.com/ and subscribe to receive periodic postings in your mailbox!

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The Ridge

One day I found the outline of a deer

in the snow. She’d slept on the old logging road

above our home, curled against the cold.

Her imprint on a trail I’d walked for

twenty years was intricate and vulnerable

as I now feel since strangers bought this land.

their cameras

nailed to the trunks of trees

Christ

At first I waved. New to the neighborhood,

the seemed shy. Hovering at the side

of the road with their harnessed dogs, they walked

harnessed too, shoulders hunched, eyes averted.

About their money I didn’t then know, or

Appalachian families letting go of land.

orange flags

festoon the property lines

orioles in snow

What we had of commons among

hill people here is gone, our hollow hollowed

out, our waves, our lifted heads, our calls across

casual borders fretted now by registered

mail. “Not authorized.” “Legal action.” They’ve

no bonds to sunder because they’ve no bonds made.

camera 1

my shetland sheepdog framed

first day of spring

Surveyed for surveillance, the ridge. But I

can love what I don’t own. I miss the oaks,

their wide-girthed stillness. I miss the mountain’s

spine. Across family lands and state lines,

through Cherokee and Appalachian time,

the mountains stay. The mountains stay. They stay.

a taloned sun sets

the red-tailed hawk

needs no human hand

Kathryn Kirkpatrick

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Creatures – so we are. We seek what all creatures seek, but especially we seek the closeness of other creatures. Kathryn Kirkpatrick is visited by crows and grieves for house wrens dying and for cows separated from their calves. She reveals her creature’s struggle and confusion as she loses her mother. She is not afraid to say that she hesitates to speak of death because every creature must face death but fears to do so. She reveals moments and connections and we readers look about us to discover her light is casting our own shadow. And in the closing section of Creature, Kathryn Kirkpatrick has written the finest collection of dog poems I’ve read in twenty years.

Creature by Kathryn Kirkpatrick at Jacar Press: HERE.

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On Finding Monarch Caterpillars in September

And whatever love a parent

feels stealing bread for a starving

child, I have it as I dig by

the flimsy light of my bargain

headlamp, having driven miles for the last

of the chain-store milkweed, which will

feed these ravenous young in their striped

skins, who are no metaphor, who stand for

themselves only, though in my ecological

worry, my long-range fright, I am surely

standing for something as I shovel in the dark.

Kathryn Kirkpatrick

In their multi-generational migration pattern, the endangered monarch butterfly bears its fourth generation in September and October. Rather than dying after two to six weeks as the earlier generations do, this generation migrates to warmer climates like California and Mexico, living six to eight months before starting the process again. – K.K.

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Ridges and Ruins – Poems for the Earth

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, tagged Bill Griffin, Earth Day, Earth Day 2025, Earth Day Every Day, ecology, Ecopoetry, imagery, Jessi Waugh, nature, nature photography, nature poetry, NC Poets, poetry, Southern writing, West Carteret High School on April 29, 2025| 5 Comments »

[poems selected by and written by the students

of West Carteret High School, Morehead City, North Carolina, USA]

Earlier this month I asked Jessi Waugh, teacher/scientist/poet and instructor in Earth and Environmental Science, if she would like to have her high school students contribute Poems for the Earth. Jessi replied Yes! and then this:

Several days before the poem-writing lesson, I gave my students the assignment to post an EcoPoem to a class discussion. They could post any poem or song lyrics related to nature. In this discussion format, students are able to see each other’s posts and like or comment. Few interacted, but they did see each other’s poems as I scrolled through the class submissions.

This assignment saw some of the expected favorites: Robert Frost, Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss. It also saw poems obviously chosen by a Google Search for “ecopoem example,” as I knew it would. But I got unexpected and delightful responses as well, such as:

Stick your leaves back on

My mother planted you the day I was born.

I grew with you.

I remember trying to stick your leaves back on in autumn;

I was scared of you changing.

Yet as time passed, my attempts stood no chance.

The cruel seasons ripped apart your branches.

The cruel season ripped me apart, too.

You looked so unrecognizable by the time winter ended,

I didn’t even wanna be near you.

My mother made me blow out a candle for you every year.

She hasn’t lit one in 1…2…3… I lost count.

I grew without you.

You stood tall, but I only kept changing.

I was scared of changing.

I’m 16 now.

A storm ripped you from the earth.

I’m trying to stick your leaves back on.

I wish you could do the same to me.

Emily M

published March 27, 2024 at https://redroompoetry.org/student-poems/stick-your-leaves-back-on/

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The Rose that Grew from Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew

from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature’s law is wrong it

learned to walk without having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,

it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

when no one else ever cared.

Tupac Shakur

from the book by the same title; more at https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/the-rose-that-grew-from-concrete

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Before they wrote a poem, Jessi gave her students this assignment: “Analyze the connections between the biosphere and other Earth systems (geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere).” She took them to the back soccer field at their school, which is surrounded on three sides by forest and powerline land. She had cut 2′ x 2′ pieces of an old tarp for them to sit on, and once they were outdoors she handed them a clipboard along with the assignment log sheet and told them to sit facing the forest and far enough apart so they couldn’t distract each other.

When we first got out there, many students sat in the middle of the field or facing away from the forest, and I came around to encourage them to sit near the wild areas and turn towards them. Most did. Others were not comfortable and chose to stand or remain near the middle of the field, especially girls wary of jumping spiders.

Students documented the abiotic and biotic factors in the ecosystem, reinforcing those terms, and created a food web with the 10 organisms they observed. These were concepts from class (trophic level, energy flow, limiting factors) put into practice. They then answered a series of questions about interactions between ecosystem components and biodiversity, and then crafted their poems, all while outside.

Before taking them outside that day, I read the students one of my own poems, Dunation, but didn’t tell them it was mine. I told them to listen for the repetition of sounds and them suggested they repeat sounds in their poems as an easy literary device.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for sitting in the back field for an hour. We saw at least 20 species between all the different insects, herbaceous perennials, trees, and birds. Likely closer to 50. In general, students were quiet and reflective and did a great job of observing the ecosystem. – Jessi Waugh

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selected student poems . . .

The Great Outdoors

When I step outside to the great outdoors

I see nothing but change, out of our culture nothing

stays the same

not the trees, not the grass, not the very ground you stand on

everything around us is just waiting on its moment

When I step outside to the great outdoors

I notice change is inevitable but nothing to fear

everything changes even just saying

“the last time I was here”

or the time and age you got, like the sound

of the creek, of the animals above, or even the things

that all of us take for granted like a mother’s love

Everything changes

please don’t be afraid

be glad you have what you have

and enjoy the change

Kevin Hunter, Student at West Carteret High School

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In the Back Soccer Field

With all these limiting beige walls I’m stuck with

for over 5 hours a day, it feels

refreshing to see the leaves, feel the breeze

crunch the brittle soil like the wandering ant

I make my pilgrimage

toward NATURE

My eyes are stimulated by something that isn’t

a screen but the echoes of human

development still make their unpleasant sounds

nature is something that can’t be replicated

truly by plastic or plaster models or

the dull green of money, as nature is

VIBRANT and cannot be comprehended by man

no matter what

Kyndall Griffin, Student at West Carteret High School

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Life Cycle

Green

Life abounds

Sunlight kisses leaves

Insects buzz, a symphony of life

Grass

Tiny world

Hidden, teeming

spiders spin, frogs leap

nature’s dance, a vibrant scene

Balance

Stillness

Whispers softly

Decomposers working

Life to death, death into life

Cycle

Jazireyah Johnson, Student at West Carteret High School

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and another favorite selected by Jessi’s students . . .

rises the moon

Days seem sometimes as if they’ll never end

Sun digs its heels to taunt you

But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same

Rises the moon

Days fade into a watercolour blur

Memories swim and haunt you

But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke

Rises the moon

Oh-oh, close your weary eyes

I promise you that soon the autumn comes

To darken fading summer skies

Breathe, breathe, breathe

Days pull you down just like a sinking ship

Floating is getting harder

But tread the water, child, and know that meanwhile

Rises the moon

Days pull you up just like a daffodil

Uprooted from its garden

They’ll tell you what you owe, but know even so

Rises the moon

You’ll be visited by sleep

I promise you that soon the autumn comes

To steal away each dream you keep

Breathe, breathe, breathe

lyrics and music by Liana Flores

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xddn3kJhhY

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Dunation

The sorrows they pile heart-high

head-high, sky-high like peaks

of primary dunes against winter-white

an accumulation of minutia

a hummock too precipitous to persist

Spring’s avalanche comes

grains slip-slide down dune slipfaces

so suddenly, the sound akin to arctic ice breaking

tern eggs crackling, oak limbs fracturing

in furious full-February gales

Hearts, heads, skies on fire

here comes March’s awakening

dunes crash-topple into manageable talus

Here we come

tip-toeing across the tops

paper children tumbling

over ridges and ruins

Jessi Waugh, Earth and Environmental Science Teacher, West Carteret High School

The main reaction from students to this project was appreciation for the time sitting outdoors, and they enjoy the social aspect of posting “favorite’ ecopoems on our class discussions. As much as I’d like to turn it into a week of poetry discussions, that would be terribly off-topic for my science class, and I used it primarily as a way to reflect on the connections between earth’s “spheres” (atmo, hydro, litho, geo) and how they interact in ecosystems. In general, I notice that students are disillusioned with politics and technology. They, like all students I’ve taught, enjoy hands-on experience and labs. I think poetry and teens could mix well in many places. – Jessi Waugh

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West Carteret High School is in Morehead City, North Carolina, in the southeastern USA. It is a public 9-12th grade high school, with about 1100 students. Approximately 40% of students are economically disadvantaged. Jessi Waugh teaches Earth and Environmental Science, since 2000 a required course for graduation. She also teaches Biology and Marine Science as needed, and has been a teacher for 12 years. Her students are all 9th & 10th grade, ages 14-16. The poems submitted are from both the honors and standard classes. She holds a Master’s in Teaching Secondary Science and an undergraduate Biology degree. I like teaching this course and age group; it’s my niche.