Poems by Kelly R. Samuels
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Learning of Unsuitable Habitats
by Kelly R. Samuels
From Canary Fall 2020
Kelly lives where the La Crosse River, the Black River, and the Mississippi meet and meld.
Pastures are, with their grasses and low lying
plants – sustenance for cattle and their
ambling or standing still. Their shuffle
forward after time. And the warmer space,
cleared of the wild cashew and yellow
lapacho large and strong with its flagrant
seedpod. So difficult to navigate, to travel
through to another space with the plentiful
nectar of the brazen red flower the feeder she
hung outside the porch attempted to mimic.
One of you would arrive and we would joke
of apparition. And just as quick – gone.
Looking north to where the barn slouched,
where the vines were having their way with
the wood, we would wait for you to return
with your hum and glimmer. Too sentimental
to say like a blessing, but true. So, the stands
of oak and walnuts and all the intentional
lilies are needed. And bee balm and blue
anise sage and honeysuckle – that blossom of
the hedge we trimmed every year, waiting
until late fall, carrying the branches back to
toss over the hill none of us could ever quite
negotiate to meet the water’s edge.
© Kelly R. Samuels
Plastic Debris, Borne
by Kelly R. Samuels
From Canary Fall 2018
Flotsam and what sinks.
Found gathering on the bottom,
layers, like sediment.
Bits
and pieces. Dregs.
The dregs of this brew,
this day,
these hours.
Toss the cap there,
throw the bottle elsewhere.
There’s a man somewhere warmer than here
building houses with these bottles – lining walls –
their captured air insulation.
And if hurricane comes,
a means of transportation, too, he claims: the makeshift raft
serving as savior. Christ and his fishermen.
Their lines are now plastic, hauled up and photographed.
Catalogued as evidence of what is borne on currents,
carried and bobbing, caught
in the throat occasionally.
We used to – as girls – slide the plastic tabs on our ring fingers
and say, Darling, how lovely.
Now we stand, scissoring the six-pack’s collar
into tinier and tinier fragments, thinking
we are helping,
believing we are good.
Previously published in Common Ground Review.
© Kelly R. Samuels
Song for the Pantala flavescens
by Kelly R. Samuels
From Canary Summer 2020
Of clear wide wing
and golden body,
the studied eye
of coruscation and skill.
Tireless, steady flight
riding the moist air
to where you feast
on what swarms and pierces
the skin. Aid to, friend
of. Searching
for the bad soul to quiet
the stomping horse.
Globe skimmer wandering
with intent. Of altar, air
and bowl, of the lily’s stem
into which the sun now is banking.
© Kelly R. Samuels
Song for the African Scarabaeus zambesianus
by Kelly R. Samuels
From Canary Spring 2021
Not by bright sun, that near
perfect star blazing.
Not the shadows it casts
sometimes or always, or the moss
on the northern side guiding
without compass, that spinning
needle. Rather, moonlight.
You—the first known to look
only to a mass of stars
and other revolutions
for steerage. Landing
to do the important work
of the field of home
and far—the moon
and all its companions clear
in either sky. See the shine
of the gem worn as brooch,
as clasp, as amulet. Sacred thing
transplanted.
© Kelly R. Samuels
The Calliope Hummingbird Speaks of Overlooked Flexibility
by Kelly R. Samuels
From Canary Spring 2021
Migration asked too much of me.
I was not a little star with my light traveling
all those thousands of miles, but rather like
a woman at her desk altering with pen the landscape
of her life. So be it. If I could not build the nest
and lay the egg when I did, then a change of.
A shift to, so as not to tire, not to wear myself out
and come to an ending I did not desire just yet.
It took you so long to notice, busy as you were
with other things. And I was so tiny, just a slip
Flit of wing you thought you saw out of
the side of your eye earlier than usual – just
a week or so, spring coming sooner. Farther
east and north, they talk of my larger and far
distant relative seen departing later and later
every fall, and of how little snow there is
even into mid-January. But, me – I was over-
looked until now with all my quiet adaptation
experts assert is necessary for everyone
and everything. We must do
what we must do.
© Kelly R. Samuels