{"id":2124,"date":"2020-02-24T13:00:26","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T18:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/?p=2124"},"modified":"2020-03-04T10:19:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T15:19:24","slug":"coveysmith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/2020\/02\/24\/coveysmith\/","title":{"rendered":"A Collection of Poems: Cesspool (Spring Birds), and Hurricane"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Erin Covey-Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the Author<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I live with my husband in Freeport, Maine, where I run, garden, cook, make art, and try to be a good steward. Through the experience and sense impressions of my lived environment, I write to explore the liminal, in-between spaces of a polarized world and to wonder at the precarious balance of degeneration and resilience found therein.<\/p>\n

\n

Cesspool (Spring Birds)<\/h3>\n

Unmistakable birdsong, sun-warm and crisp,
\nnatural awakening after unnatural rain,
\nrides the airwaves behind a news interview \u2013
\na Midwestern farmer lamenting a deluge,
\nrecord floodwaters laying fallow in his fields.<\/p>\n

My ears prick and ring, senses quickening
\nas serenading birds flit in my yard, out the sun-
\nstrewn window, warming their blood, conjuring
\ngrowth in the seeds they peck. While again and
\nalways, the air also bears a burden: news
\nof a devastating cyclone in Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

I walk out into the expansive embrace of softening
\nbreezes, and every cell welcomes the irrepressible
\nsmell of dirt, soil ripening in the thawing meadow.<\/p>\n

We winter-weary New Englanders welcome dirt,
\nits promising microbial stirrings as distant
\ngeographically as chemically from cyclone-stirred
\nplague-ridden, family-rifting mud.<\/p>\n

Such light-hearted, darkly woven songs:
\nthose Midwestern birds borne over airwaves
\ndissipate in my mind, while those sharing
\nthe sweet air I breathe trill here, here, here.<\/em><\/p>\n

How does sorrow of such grand scales
\nslip so easily from the mind, like so much
\nreceding flood water? Only, instead of leaving
\ndestruction in its wake, it leaves birdsong,
\nheart-leaping wonder at wakening life<\/p>\n

(and a cesspool of guilt at the
\nsloping edge of consciousness.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/h3>\n

Hurricane<\/h3>\n

I wanted to stop the storm; I couldn’t stop the storm.
\nIt was bigger than me, and far away.<\/p>\n

I did open the window, to better hear the crickets,
\nto feel the humid, stirred air,<\/p>\n

which was something, at least.<\/p>\n

This one, open-windowed world, pulsing
\nwith distant storm, with serenaded sky
\nintimately glimpsed in the backyard:<\/p>\n

You can’t fear one and rejoice in the other.<\/p>\n

Or you can, you must. If you, too, are to pulse \u2013
\nand you do, we do, diaphanous-skinned beings that we are \u2013
\none can’t course through you<\/p>\n

without the other.<\/p>\n

You must hold both to feel one,
\nYou must feel both, and somehow \u2013
\nhere is the trick of it \u2013<\/p>\n

You must not break.<\/p>\n

<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Erin Covey-Smith From the Author I live with my husband in Freeport, Maine, where I run, garden, cook, make art, and try to be a good steward. Through the experience and sense impressions of my lived environment, I write to explore the liminal, in-between spaces of a polarized world and to wonder at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spire-2020-issue"],"yoast_head":"\nA Collection of Poems: Cesspool (Spring Birds), and Hurricane - The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability - University of Maine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/2020\/02\/24\/coveysmith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Collection of Poems: Cesspool (Spring Birds), and Hurricane - The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability - University of Maine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Erin Covey-Smith From the Author I live with my husband in Freeport, Maine, where I run, garden, cook, make art, and try to be a good steward. 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