Page 69 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2
P. 69
III. Telegram to Bartram
OK. Come TMRW.
Can promise P palustrus.
W/ luck Picoides borealis.
Grove @ confluence:
Ochlockonee & Dead R.
6 mi inland fr. Forgotten Coast.
Bring unabridged ms.
Have publisher 4 U.
Combo deal—
my poems + our story.
Unexpurgated.
I await.
Notes:
If we are to survive, we must commune
with the dead, whether human or
nonhuman. We can hear them if we just listen. This poem is a communion with one of my saints,
William Bartram, the great late-‐18th-‐century American naturalist who left a record of the coastal south
from Georgia into Florida to show us exactly what we have lost. Using three forms of communication, a
postcard, a missive, and a telegram, I write “Willy” in anticipation of our reunion across time and the
life-‐death continuum. I foreground the natural environment which he and I share (I reside half-‐time in
Florida).
An eight-‐time Pushcart-‐Prize nominee and
National Park Artist-‐in-‐Residence, Karla Linn
Merrifield has had some 450 poems appear in
dozens of journals and anthologies. She has ten
books to her credit, the newest of which are Lithic
Scatter and Other Poems (Mercury Heartlink) and
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