“We have been worked by decades
of gain and loss, hard work, meager wages, long hours,
creating to be in lust with life, with existence,
with rain’s kiss and sun’s benediction.”

Gabrielle Myers is a writer, professor, and chef. Her memoir, Hive-Mind, was published in 2015. Her first poetry books Too Many Seeds and Break Self: Feed are available via Finishing Line Press (2024). Her third poetry book, Points in the Network, is forthcoming in 2025. She joins us remotely via Zoom.

Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Gabrielle, what poems have you brought for us today?

Green Humming Earth

Lady bugs’ pin-like bodies pulse.
Hear the frogs’ moaning chins
Hit mud, send signals to shake pond walls.
Wild golden lilies throw petals open.
The ceanothus’ tails cast pollen on lily lips,
Fall soft against their tongues.
In the field lupine gather against hill rise;
Their perfect bells build to our breaths,
Spring into their scents. Fall against
A charred pine limb. Watch the green sprouts
Push from the burn. What we take forward:
Nymphs gathering to dance at sunset,
Thousands of baby dragonflies rise
Forward into fecund amber light,
Double-wings lost in their potential, vibrating against
The edges of each other’s wings.

---
The Aftermath of Flourishing

Solstice sun rises, pushes out dew’s lingering moisture from grass seeds.
Once purple and white variegated flowers now grow into prickly star-like
Heads that dig into our socks and ankles, cling to dog fur and sheep hide.
The momma toad who birthed her babies in our garden
Has retreated to our spring.
When we water the tomatillos, tomatoes, and basil, baby toad after baby toad
Hops across raised beds, seeking cover in the garden’s safe edge.
What started to move into wholeness before has been met with the aftermath
Of its flourishing; what died last year has been rebirthed from seed, attended
With rain and our watering can, endured the early summer’s heat rise
To just below 99 F.
What knowledge can we harness in our bones, push out like the sun pushes
Dew from thinning straw blades?
What lessons in care can we extract from the seed hull
Which nourishes for months and months?
What will the mamma toad speak with her deep-throated horn, her call
Widening out from our spring, filling the canyon in her urging
For us to raise ourselves whole?

---
Summer's Widening Aperture

Nematodes and microbials eat through seemingly dry soil.
Plough through surface desiccation to extract a buffet.
Feed on forgotten roots and pine bark fragments.
Summer's heat pumps into our toes and fingers.
Amassing pressure builds to release in a tomato's stem.
An electric pole moves us down hills towards a creek's edge.
A world widening aperture forces us to wake to water's movements over smooth rocks.
Waters push through drying mountains.
It's underground, inevitable cascade towards us.

---
Flower Feeding

Under the May moon's growing light,
lupine unfurl their tight stacked blossoms.
Baby kittens make their way out
from beneath storage sheds.
Mayflies rise against a brisk sunset.
What are we meant to do but plant seeds into thawing, drying soil?
What are we meant to do
but hold each other up to cumulus clouds,
to hail that pounds against flesh?
To the opening a hummingbird gives
after its flower feeding.

You've beem listening to the poems of Gabrielle Myers on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.