Poems by Rhett Watts
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Bear and Wolf
For many, the bear and wolf are the last true
symbols of the primal natural world.
National Geographic
by Rhett Watts
From Canary Spring 2021
Rhett lives in the Blackstone River watershed yards from a brook that runs off the Lower Worcester Plateau. Her neighborhood is inhabited by American mink, foxes, bald eagles, humans and is not far from the Last Green Valley heritage corridor.
He shakes off den dreams, splashes
loping over brook stones--a bear on a ramble.
Dazzling, scent stronger than wet wool,
his yelps echo like sliding rock.
Then up against a snag, purple tongue
reaches for honeycomb as a wolf wig wags
at his feet. Back-scratching, the bear
seems not to notice. She-wolf bows, dodging
before the standing bear who drops on all fours.
A single wolf is small threat. This night
and for nine nights more they roam together,
companions in the moonlit basin until dawn.
Even share prey throughout their long truce.
Parted, wolf enters the shallows.
Her pelt, the sky, silver as the trout writhing
in her jaws. Bear probes for ants in the
cracked cliff face. On a far canyon's wall,
the pair's likeness is erosion-etched.
The strange bedfellows--bear forever bent to
wolf's ear. Between them, a vein of mica
lustrous as the setting sun.
© Rhett Watts
The Mending
“School children of America!
Help save your fathers, brothers, neighbors
by collecting milkweed pods.”
from a Soil Conservation Service pamphlet, 1945
by Rhett Watts
From Canary Fall 2020
September's end, the last clematis pours
over summer's guardrails, so much spilled cream.
Seeds burst milkweed pods, a chrysalis hangs
its tiny lantern. Three gilt dots seal wings
within like rivets or the molten metal
that heals cracked pottery.
Milkweed tufts loft into air. Land seed parachutes.
Call to mind a brochure Dad saved when
the plant still covered the prairie. Millions of
pounds of fluff salvaged for the war effort.
Two pillowcases full stuffed one life vest.
Hollow white spindles trapped air,
waxy coating shed water, saving a pilot
or a sailor from drowning.
Emergent imagoes-- imaginal cells--fully formed,
or not, dry your wings. Flap and glide
heedless of the names we call you: Monarch,
Black-veined Brown, Common Wanderer.
Ride the wind to a home seen only in flight
from above this tangle of green and gold.
© Rhett Watts