I have found that the world of plants and animals offers me a reprieve from grief. My curiosity is awakened. I want to know the names of everything like a child just learning to talk. The day I wrote the poem, I wondered what it would be like to not be human, to be a plant instead. I used images from the day’s walks in woods and near river. I was practicing becoming a plant.
Ellen Stone considers rural Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor, and up north Michigan home. She is the author of What Is in the Blood (Mayapple Press, 2020) and The Solid Living World (Michigan Writers’ Cooperative Press, 2013). Ellen’s poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Best of the Net.
