Section 4: Struggle + Adaptation - photo of two men of color kneeling before police vehicles

Carol L. Gloor

Waller Creek

The sign scolds no trash, no litter,

yet three turtles sunbathe on a broken pipe,

others swim lazily over Skittles bags, Pepsi cans,

their checkerboard shells making progress,

their ancient heads lifting to breathe good enough air.

Life goes on here too, says the grey heron,

elegant as an italicized S,

as she spears a small, polluted crustacean.

Her fear sanded down by long living among humans,

she turns her head once, eyes gesturing

I know you.

Lying in the Grass

Since the next big event in my life

will probably be dying,

I apply for citizenship

in the republic of ants and grass.

I lie under the venerable spruce

outside my porch,

watch at eye level

until the crabgrass, creeping Charlie,

sorrel and pine needles

slow my heart, slice my breath

into even steps downward.

Every green thing sequesters carbon,

exhales oxygen.

Ants full of purpose hurry

to the top of a crabgrass blade,

then bustle down the other side.

Wind riffles my hair green.

Carol L. Gloor’s poetry appears most recently in Midwest Writer’s Center Writer’s Block online journal, and in the online journal Postcard Poems and Prose. She has work upcoming in the anthology Feminine Rising. Her chapbook, Assisted Living, was published in 2013 by Finishing Line Press, and her full length collection, Falling Back, was just published by WordPoetry in 2018.

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