Arana Gulch Experimental Outplanting of Santa Cruz Tarplant
We bend to plant five hundred seedlings.
How long the wait for right conditions!
A rising sea breeze ripples our limbs.
Clouds of crows lift, archival magicians,
even their careening crow shadows
remember coastal hillsides burgeoning
—how long, dormant seed bank beneath this meadow?--
with yellow tarplant blossoms. Circling,
their wings silver as they angle towards sun,
unreel time, fill sky with ancient ranting
as we transform the land with our green thumb,
transfixed in our downward facing planting
our prayer to Gaia’s mysterious
frailties, another endangered species.
Joanna Martin has published two books with Hummingbird Press: The Meaning of Wings and Where Stars Begin. She has been published in Caesura, Red Wheelbarrow, Monterey Poetry Review, Porter Gulch Review and various other literary publications.
We bend to plant five hundred seedlings.
How long the wait for right conditions!
A rising sea breeze ripples our limbs.
Clouds of crows lift, archival magicians,
even their careening crow shadows
remember coastal hillsides burgeoning
—how long, dormant seed bank beneath this meadow?--
with yellow tarplant blossoms. Circling,
their wings silver as they angle towards sun,
unreel time, fill sky with ancient ranting
as we transform the land with our green thumb,
transfixed in our downward facing planting
our prayer to Gaia’s mysterious
frailties, another endangered species.
Joanna Martin has published two books with Hummingbird Press: The Meaning of Wings and Where Stars Begin. She has been published in Caesura, Red Wheelbarrow, Monterey Poetry Review, Porter Gulch Review and various other literary publications.
