ORNITHOLOGY
With a line from Maria Popova’s Spell Against Indifference
The proposal comes like deception, thick tongued
The bear tooth trap in the woods
Bad things befall young girls in the woods…
We are made myth, story of warning
Half a shell of a robin’s egg crushed in a bed of half chewed sunflower seeds
The fallen branch, the broken nest
The remains, the remains, the remains
Speak to me of power
And I’ll show you how power is achieved
How a woman can be overpowered
So she hands over her power, relinquishes it for her safety
Why am I not safe from their advances, without a ring on my hand?
Why was the ring needed before my grandmothers could own land?
Is a union a means to achieve power in the end?
This is how the self- portrait of a woman muddies
Is she still powerful within the structure that seeks to break her?
The world begs for my silence, prefers me inarticulate
That I should be society’s conforming participant
But I am building a life- anti-life, something our grandmothers only settled for
I am not the deer, headlight blind in the woods
The daughter learned from her father how to walk through these woods
Like the hunter
I pull taut the bow I was given, I am not asking permission
To be allowed the indulgence of affection without my sacrifice
What was once unsayable becomes birdsong; I hear it through the Pines
Lines of women who hoped to remain free within the circle of their matrimony
The robin broke free of the shell before the falling
Someone carried her to a higher branch.
THE OLIVE TREES OF SALENTO1
The olive trees are dying.
They are slowly choking to death
A bacteria has blocked the flow of water
Clogged xylem vessels running from root to leaf
The region of Puglia is home to these trees
One thousand years old at least, these ancient trees now shriveled and gray in a barren grove
84,000 hectares with 10 million plants verdigrises the landscape of the Lecce Salento
This olive abundance deemed the “Heritage of Humanity”
A living testimony to our history linked to the land
It is said
The Greeks brought us
The olive plant, sacred to the goddess Athena; guarantees victory in divine challenge
And so adorns many coat of arms, like Otranto with its “Torre del Serpe”
Preserves the image of identity
A tradition of cultivation
Green gold from the precious fruit of the olive tree
“Trappeti” dug into rock, built on the ruins of granaries
Introduced by the Messapi as far back as 1300 BC
Home to the “Trappitari” November through May
They work and they work and they pray
That a disease carried by something small and seemingly insignificant-
Sap feeding spittlebugs and sharpshooters,
Will not enter the Mycorrhizal Network
Disrupting, destroying, scorching the leaves of the olive tree
Witness to centuries of life proceeding
What are we witnessing?
A tree known for its slow growth and longevity
A tree that thrives in harsh conditions-
Withstands drought
Unique due to its braided trunk
Twisting clockwise,
The rotation like the revolution of the earth, the motion influencing the tree
We are influenced so easily
In Nardo, a province of Lecce, there stands two trees
Who have entwined to look as if they are kissing
A father kisses his little girl before the bombs begin dropping
I am no longer talking about olive trees
I am speaking to you about a country
They are slowly choking to death
Clogged xylem vessels running from root to leaf
One thousand years old at least, these ancient trees now shriveled and gray in a barren grove
This olive abundance deemed the “Heritage of Humanity”
It is said
The olive plant, sacred to the goddess Athena, guarantees victory in divine challenge
Preserves the image of identity
Green gold from the precious fruit of the olive tree
Introduced by the Messapi as far back as 1300 BC
They work and they work and they pray
Sap feeding spittlebugs and sharpshooters,
Disrupting, destroying, scorching the leaves of the olive tree
What are we witnessing?
A tree that thrives in harsh conditions-
Unique due to its braided trunk
The rotation like the revolution of the earth, the motion influencing the tree
In Nardo, a province of Lecce there stands two trees
A father kisses his little girl before the bombs begin dropping
I am speaking to you about a country
I am no longer talking about olive trees
They are slowly choking to death
This olive abundance deemed the “Heritage of Humanity”
Preserves the image of identity
They work and they work and they pray
What are we witnessing?
The rotation like the revolution of the earth, the motion influencing the tree
I am no longer talking about olive trees
1. The murmur was created by poet Mahogany L. Brown. It is an acknowledgment of [Cathay] Williams’s being the only Black woman in the Buffalo Soldier’s 38th Infantry. The final construction consists of three parts. The first element, “The Sound,” is a thirty-eight-line poem written by the poet. The subsequent construction, “The Murmuration,” is a poem that takes the even numbers from the previous composition. These lines, nineteen in total, will then be divided into six tercets. “The Murmuration” closes with a declarative statement from line 37 of “The Sound.” The final piece, “The Echo,” is composed by taking the first line from each tercet in “The Murmuration.” The collection of these three elements will complete the full murmur.
Alise Versella is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet and author of the collections When Wolves Become Birds, A Psalm for the Weary, Tender is the Body, Maenads of the 21st Century and most recently Inaccurate Histories. She has been published widely in such journals as The Opiate and Press Pause Press. You can find her with a good book and a gin cocktail or at http://www.aliseversella.com.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 