Catherine Abbey Hodges

Back when I was in high school and we were starting our botany unit, a boy sitting in front of me raised his hand and announced that he could photosynthesize. It was a strange and memorable moment; I felt both embarrassed for him and secretly hopeful that it could be true. Really, though, isn’t the process of photosynthesis and respiration—the essential complementarity that sustains our ecosystem—miracle enough?

Lodged among my earliest memories, from long before I knew anything about photosynthesis, are walks with my mother. These memories are sensory: the feel of my hand in hers, the sound of her voice naming the plants and birds we saw, admiring and exclaiming over them. My three-year-old self registered her delight; from her I learned to love small things and to notice what might not be of interest to others. I took for granted, though only much later would I have words for this, that attention is its own reward. So is delight.

The poem “Stems” brings together my dual obsessions with the natural world and with the small and overlooked. It enjoys employing language we don’t generally associate with plants: “monastic,” for example, and “drinking straws.” It takes pleasure in off-beat comparisons, and it riffs on biblical passages, as in “metaphorical as serpents / durable as doves.” Finally, the poem suggests that a blue flower may be as good as an answer—may in fact be an answer. I like that, and I believe it.

I think of the process of bringing myself to stillness to notice what I notice about an oak tree or a wisteria pod as a spiritual practice—one that is often before or beyond language. When words do arrive and I follow where they lead, that too is spiritual practice.