A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Two Poems by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

Elizabeth Spencer Spragins, USA

 

Treasure

Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, Manteo, North CarolinaUSA

 

when a red wolf howls

the twilight winds remember

music of old moons

echoes in the wooded halls

lined with uncut emeralds

 

  

In 1987, the US Fish and Wildlife Service initiated a program to save the red wolf from extinction. More than 100 captive-bred wolves were released in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge over the next thirty years. Although the population grew to more than 200 wolves, numbers have plummeted over the last decade. Fewer than 45 animals remain, and the outlook for the program is uncertain.

 

  

 

Going Back

Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

 

a moose meanders

over remnants of the road

aflame with autumn

leaves that cup the crimson cold

spill their silence underfoot


 

Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a poet and writer who taught in American community colleges for more than a decade. Her tanka and bardic verse in the Celtic style have been published extensively in Europe, Asia, and North America. She is the author of With No Bridle for the Breeze: Ungrounded Verse (Shanti Arts Publishing) and The Language of Bones: American Journeys Through Bardic Verse(Kelsay Books). Updates are available on her website: www.authorsden.com/elizabethspragins. An avid swimmer and an enthusiastic fiber artist, she lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

The Plain of all Delusions

The Call of the Orang-utan