Gwendolyn Morgan, The Pacific Northwest
When the sun rose above
the cascade peaks
she laced her hiking boots, retraced
her steps like Raven following rain clouds
she knows the names of ink cap
blue chanterelle, black morel,
the understory
the forest floor
illuminates her path
to perceive the natural world
through traditional ways of being
elemental knowing leaf detritus
the forest lessons of ash leaves, white fir needles
mouse-tail moss, lichens, new territory of rhizomes
she wishes the children in the shelter, in the cages
could taste the sweet licorice root
touch yellow-green mosses
place rings of bracken ferns around
small brown earth hands.
She walks into this territory underground
ancestral land emergent layers, dense canopy
enormous mushroom shaped crowns
thousands of persons without homes now
she knows they will be wandering
seeking home for decades
if they survive as she has survived so far
guessing the names of other plants
her grandmother pointed out the ones you could eat
the ones to avoid like immigration officers
skulking in the shadows others waiting to evict
the wild ones, tented beneath Douglas Fir
her boots leave clear tracks
in the places where the latest news
dampens her hopes as she remembers
light a candle of invocation
change consciousness
like a chalice of golden chanterelles;
may courage sustain us all.
Gwendolyn Morgan is a Pacific Northwest poet and artist who serves in interfaith Spiritual Care in a medical center. She learned the names of birds and inherited horse hair paint brushes and wooden paint boxes from her grandmothers. The Clark County Poet Laureate 2018-2020 in Washington State, her third book of poetry, Before the Sun Rises is a Nautilus Silver Winner in Poetry. Gwendolyn and her spouse Judy A. Rose focused on poetry and music during a Winter 2020 Centrum Artist Residency. As a multiracial family in a multispecies watershed, they are committed to equity work and inclusion for all.