Science Poem: The Birds of Hyde Park

Long before I knew that science writing could be a job, I wrote science poems. A lot of them. Sometimes several in a day. And just as quickly, I abandoned them and moved on to the next vivid factoid in astronomy, anatomy, or animal behavior. There are hundreds of these dashed-off verses in my files, […]

Science-ish Poem: Right Then

My blue jay friends are back, tap-dancing on my balcony to get my attention, peering accusingly through the living room windows until I get up to fetch the peanut dish. There are many, many more blue jay poems in my future. Here’s one from the past. (This post first appeared in March of 2022). Many […]

Window: White Pine

It’s been a little while since I shared some bummer bird poetry. This one has the marvelous distinction of having been broadcast into a dark Scottish forest. My other poems are still a little jealous. Window: White Pine I. Chaos in the predawn dark— starlings scream II. Robbing the open pinecone, rewarded again and again—chickadee […]

Science Poem: To the Sylacauga Meteorite

NOTE: The images in this post are best viewed on a desktop device or tablet, not a phone. One dim November afternoon in Alabama in 1954, 34-year-old Ann Hodges curled up on her couch, pulled the quilts around her body, and fell asleep. She woke in pain and disorientation to a house full of smoke, […]

Number the Days

It is me again, with my hopeful calendars! I originally wrote this post in January 2020, when the calendar did seem like a place where you could write something on a certain date and there would be a reasonable chance that it would come to pass. I feel much more timid now, three years on. […]

Guest Post: Permanent Impermanence

Assateague The waves curl in and lave the shore, drop their cargo of shells and polished glass, then withdraw, clawing back the sand. Sanderlings scatter, poke and pick, flee incoming waves, chase them back out, reverse, repeat. I stand on spongy sand, solid enough if a bit shaky, sea foam washing my feet. Somewhere to […]

Poem: Parking Lot, Deception Pass

In 2019, some science writer friends and I took a trip to Whidbey Island, just north of Seattle. I spent the drive there bargaining with my chronic illness, calculating how much I’d be able to do, and how much I’d have to miss. My need to survive grated against my need to actually live, as it […]

Finding My Friend’s Unwritten Poems

For as long as I’ve known her, my best friend has written a poem each day and then sent it out into the world. For more than a dozen years, she wrote a daily poem. On the day her teenage son ended his life, she stopped.  I’d grown accustomed to opening Rosemerry’s poems in my […]