For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches’ Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen
Back then, what did I know?
The names of subway lines, busses.
How long it took to walk 20 blocks.
Uptown and downtown.
Not north, not south, not you.
When I saw you, later, seaweed reefed in the air,
you were grey-green, incomprehensible, old.
What you clung to, hung from: old.
Trees looking half-dead, stones.
Marriage of fungi and algae,
chemists of air,
changers of nitrogen-unusable into nitrogen-usable.
Like those nameless ones
who kept painting, shaping, engraving,
unseen, unread, unremembered.
Not caring if they were no good, if they were past it.
Rock wools, water fans, earth scale, mouse ears, dust,
ash-of-the-woods.
Transformers unvalued, uncounted.
Cell by cell, word by word, making a world they could live in.
JANE HIRSHFIELD is one of American poetry's central spokespersons for concerns of the biosphere. Read More
“For the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches’ Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen” was previously published in Come, Thief (NY: Knopf / Newcastle UK: Bloodaxe, 2011). This poem is reprinted with permission from the author.