i, Naturalist by John Miguel Shakespear
Poetry editor Lauren Sparks on today’s poem: From the careful (and darkly playful) attention to capitalization in its very title, “i, Naturalist,” forward, John Miguel Shakespear’s cuttingly grounded voice remains insistently aware of the violent memory housed within its very own language of mourning. Some poems stick with you, absorbed into the body, from a first read onward—as if that first read itself already felt like a memory. For me, “i, Naturalist” is one of those pieces. I have read many a “climate doom” poem, but “doom” would not be the right word to house, “i, Naturalist,” something painfully wiser, perhaps—more tender, less afraid.
i, naturalist
Just after the heat wave ended, I bought
an app that knew the names of trees.
Hickory, Blue Ash, Jacaranda. Wow.
I walked around the city photographing
leaves and feeling good about myself –
yes, there was war, but here was a man
who had Googled trees. Here was a modern
Thoreau, alone before the earth’s majesty
with only one fee-based app to help him.
The trees were dying: the Gumwood,
the Fraser Fir, the Four-Petal Paw-Paw,
the Dragon Tree and the Monkey Puzzle,
and even the ones they sold at Christmas
in the twinkle-lit parking lots all across
this young and murderous country,
so in the tradition of my helpless ancestors
I vowed to name them while they died.
It was a belated apology for murder,
like the names of the places where the leaf-
peepers went in the fall: Lake Winnipesaukee
Mount Katahdin, the Mohegan Sun off 395,
and all those other reminders that even
a cluster of redwoods in our unforgivable
language is called a colony.
John Miguel Shakespear is a writer and musician from Massachusetts who serves as the prose editor for Bull City Press’s INCH series. His writing has appeared in Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, and The Believer, and his debut record Spend Your Youth drew praise from NPR and American Songwriter. Of Argentinian and Irish descent, he bears no known relation to William Shakespeare, but he likes the guy. Find him at www.johnshakespear.com He tweets @johnshakespear
