by Sydney Sheltz-Kempf
The red fern once grew everywhere, fanning the earth
in baby-faced oxygen and crone-stricken grief with the knowledge
that even such expansive molecular chemistry would not stretch far
enough to extend the borders much further than the mesosphere.
Where do you stretch after you’ve reached the ends of the earth?
Is there no place except to cling deeper, extend roots
into the magma and pray that she will accept your outstretched hand,
immigrant from silent air shifting into a resident of the heat?
Jurassic to igneous is a terrible transition but if the dinosaurs
could still appreciate the perfume of the magnolias while bathed
in the warm light of the impending end, it gives me hope that I
could find the same bravery, to follow where the red fern once grew.
