Sally Bliumis-Dunn

 For me, the question is whether or not I can translate into language the strong sense of connection I feel to the flora and fauna around me. This sense of connection is always present on some level though I am moved to write mostly when I feel an underlying conversation occurring, often one already in process, that I need to record.

My poem, “View,” was the most intimate and surprising of these conversations because I only realized that the trees outside my office window had been part of my nighttime dreamscape when I returned to Maine and sat before them to write.

I wrote “Birches” near the beginning of the pandemic when I was haunted and vulnerable and isolated. I had the strong sense that the birches on our driveway were watching over, benevolently protecting my husband and me. “Birches” began with the image of their dark eyes that formed where branches had been lost. When complete, the poem offered a deep sense of solace that its writing allowed me to discover.

In “Forget-me-not,” I gave myself permission to imagine the tiny flower’s observations. I came upon something I had not known about human vanity as well as what I imagined as the flower’s more independent sense of self, relatively speaking.

Paying close attention to the natural world both frees my imagination and offers, in equal parts, comfort, awe and a deep sense of reverence— the most intimate connection to the spiritual. This has been true for me since childhood.