Untitled Document
friendquotepoem #5
diane says
in the next life
she’s
going to
come back with
more hard drive
© Jacqueline Jackson 2007
Though the dog chose domestication, cheerfully
enjoying human food and protection, most of the world’s species look
upon us with justifiable wariness, for we’re among the most dangerous
critters on the planet. Here Minnesota poet Freya Manfred, while out for a
leisurely swim, comes face to face with a species that will not be trained
to sit or roll over.
Swimming With A Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle
I spy his head above the waves, big as a man’s fist, black eyes peering at me, until he dives into darker, deeper water. Yesterday I saw him a foot from my outstretched hand, already tilting his great domed shell away. Ribbons of green moss rippled behind him, growing along the ridge of his back and down his long reptilian tail. He swims in everything he knows, and what he knows is never forgotten. Wisely, he fears me as if I were the Plague, which I am, sick unto death, swimming to heal myself in his primeval sea.
Reprinted by permission of Freya Manfred, whose most
recent book is My Only Home (Red Dragonfly Press, 2003). Poem copyright © 2006 by Freya
Manfred. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The
Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
Ted Kooser served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from
2004-2006. For more information, go to www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2007.
