Holly Day - Five Poems

1. For New Constellations

If you were to set me free, I would leave with only

A rolled-up animal skin tent strapped to my back

A pocketful of  dried berries and reindeer meat

A chunk of ice in a bucket to later melt into water.

I would give you one backwards last glance,

one last chance to stop me

before disappearing into a landscape of glaciers and polar bears

a sky filled with so many stars.

It would only take moments for my retreating figure

To be swallowed up in an expanse of white snow, only moments

For the wind to erase my footprints, the twin snaky signatures left by my sled.

eventually, you’ll discover that all of your letters

have been forwarded to a research station abandoned by Russians

years before, everything you forgot to say in person

has been shredded into bedding by arctic foxes and penguins

chewed into mulch by inquisitive polar bears.

***

2. In Search of Truth

In the 14th century, world-renowned traveler Sir John Mandeville

came back to England with stories of a "vegetable sheep,"

thinking that the cotton plants he'd seen growing in India

were actually embryonic sheep, born out of the hard little wooden nubs.

First, sheep start out as fluff, he theorized, then the hoofs and the legs emerged

pulling the sheep out afterwards. He didn’t stay in India long enough

to see the cotton grow into a sheep, but he did bring home several pods

for scientists to dissect and study, in hopes of growing more

vegetable sheep in English soil.

It wasn't until 1557

that Italian scientist Girolamo Cardano

wrote an extensive and exhaustive thesis on how soil

could not possibly provide the requisite heat for fetal development

he was very sure of this. There were rumors

of questionable experiments, a slew of missing dogs and cats

a few sheep from the surrounding countryside

tiny graves and headstones in his backyard

hidden just behind a plot of sweet peas and marigolds.

***

3. Too Late

If we were alive a thousand years ago

the only way we would have ever gotten together

would be briefly: you, emerging from your spartan

clay-floored monk’s cell, horsehair-stippled habit

hiding your rough, angry frame as you stomp

off into the woods, into the night

to my tiny hut packed with bottles of bright-colored rocks

roof fallen inward from the weight of birds’ nests and ivy

packed to the ceiling with things found on my walks

eyes of tiny creatures watching from every corner.

I would greet you at the door, hair wild and unkempt

leaves and twigs stuck in the knots at the base of my neck

greet you and your rules and order without question or thought.

There would be a moment in all of this where we made total sense

where our differences didn’t matter, as if we evened each other out

where our grunting and screaming was some type of language

that erased the whole world around us. Eventually, though,

just like now

the sun always comes up

and we remember who we are.

***

4. When We’re Gone

One day, there will be nobody here

to pull up the errant maples

sprouting in the garden, no one to sweep up

the piles of desiccated, spun-out helicopter seeds

no one to stop the crush of ivy from growing up

through the cracked window frame

snaking through the rungs of our dust-covered furniture

pulling our roof apart. We won’t be here to stop

the hairy mounds of tree roots from clogging up the pipes

dandelions from flowering and spreading in the dirty gutters

thistles from spreading through the vegetable garden.

We won’t be here to cluck at the sidewalks buckling

from the shifting of sand pulled by underground streams

at the growth of potholes in the alley out back

at the squirrels climbing into the attic

to build homes alongside noisy sparrows and emboldened mice.

***

5. Anwen

When I was little, my mother would point out

circular patterns of mushrooms growing in the yard

tell me they were fairy ring, to be careful

not to step in them

or the fairies would take me away.

When she wasn’t looking, I would step into the circle

sometimes sit or lie in the circles for hours

waiting for fairies that never came.

This was the birth of my skepticism.

Me, ten years old

aimlessly picking at four-leafed clovers

with just one wish in my heart:

to leave.