We are living in a world-altering moment in history. Now is the time for art and connection. Now is the time to remember and strengthen our roots in nature and our forests. Taking each day as it comes, I’ve drawn strength from the poetry of these five women of color. With diverse cultural backgrounds, including Creole, Mojave, and Chinese, these artists’ powerful words and depictions of nature resonate deeply with me, so I wanted to share them with you.

Whether it’s a reminder that flowers and our souls grow wild and free or mythologizing the loss of a river, these poems tap into both unique and universal experiences of nature that can help ground us and lay bare all the fierce beauty in our world.

Sonnet

by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson

I had no thought of violets of late, The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet In wistful April days, when lovers mate And wander through the fields in raptures sweet. The thought of violets meant florists’ shops, And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine; And garish lights, and mincing little fops And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine. So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed, I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams; The perfect loveliness that God has made,— Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams. And now—unwittingly, you’ve made me dream Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.

On the Pulse of Morning

by Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Marked the mastodon, The dinosaur, who left dried tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow, I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness Have lain too long Facedown in ignorance, Your mouths spilling words Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today, You may stand upon me, But do not hide your face. …

(Excerpt. For the full poem, watch the video below of Maya Angelou performing “On the Pulse of Morning” at the 1992 presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton.)

How the Milky Way was Made

by Natalie Diaz

My river was once unseparated. Was Colorado. Red- fast flood. Able to take        anything it could wet—in a wild rush—                                  all the way to Mexico. Now it is shattered by fifteen dams over one-thousand four-hundred and fifty miles, pipes and pumps filling swimming pools and sprinklers       in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. To save our fish, we lifted them from our skeletoned river beds, loosed them in our heavens, set them aster —       ‘Achii ‘ahan, Mojave salmon,                                 Colorado pikeminnow— Up there they glide, gilled with stars. You see them now—       god-large, gold-green sides,                                 moon-white belly and breast— making their great speeded way across the darkest hours, rippling the sapphired sky-water into a galaxy road. The blurred wake they drag as they make their path through the night sky is called       ‘Achii ‘ahan nyuunye—                                 our words for Milky Way. Coyote too is up there, crouched in the moon, after his failed attempt to leap it, fishing net wet       and empty, slung over his back—                                 a prisoner blue and dreaming of unzipping the salmon’s silked skins with his teeth. O, the weakness of any mouth       as it gives itself away to the universe                                 of a sweet-milk body. Just as my own mouth is dreamed to thirst the long desire-ways, the hundred-thousand light year roads       of your throat and thighs.

Nature Aria

by Yi Lei translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi Autumn wind chases in From all directions And a thousand chaste leaves Give way. Scatter in me the seeds Of a thousand saplings. Let grow a grassy heaven. On my brow: a sun. This bliss is yours, Living World, and alone it endures. Music at midnight. Young wine. Lovers hand in hand By daylight, moonlight. Living World, hold me In your mouth, Slip on your frivolous shoes And dance with me. My soul Is the wild vine Who alone has grasped it, Who has seen through the awful plot, Who will arrive in time to vanquish The river already heavy with blossoms, The moon spilling light onto packs Of men. What is sadder than witless Wolves, wind without borders, Nationless birds, small gifts Laden with love’s intentions? Fistfuls of rain fall hard, fill My heart with mud. An old wind May still come chasing in. Resurrection fire. And me here Laughing like a cloud in trousers, Entreating the earth to bury me.

Summer Haibun

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil To everything, there is a season of parrots. Instead of feathers, we searched the sky for meteors on our last night. Salamanders use the stars to find their way home. Who knew they could see that far, fix the tiny beads of their eyes on distant arrangements of lights so as to return to wet and wild nests? Our heads tilt up and up and we are careful to never look at each other. You were born on a day of peaches splitting from so much rain and the slick smell of fresh tar and asphalt pushed over a cracked parking lot. You were strong enough—even as a baby—to clutch a fistful of thistle and the sun himself was proud to light up your teeth when they first swelled and pushed up from your gums. And this is how I will always remember you when we are covered up again: by the pale mica flecks on your shoulders. Some thrown there from your own smile. Some from my own teeth. There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter. Any trace left on the knife will make a kitchen sink like that evening air the cool night before star showers: so sticky so warm so full of light
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Amanda Rodriguez

Amanda is a first generation Cuban American. As a child in West Virginia, she saw first-hand the impact of forest destruction. Now, she helps others support Dogwood Alliance’s vital mission and applies her skills to online and web marketing. A poet, essayist, and fiction writer, Amanda is also the filmmaker of Dogwood’s "Stories Happen in Forests" documentary. She holds a Masters degree from Queens University of Charlotte and a BA from Antioch College. Amanda has been with Dogwood Alliance since 2010.