Last Naturalist

A poem by Neil Shepard

Dappled shade

cloaks my arms,

ferns disguise

my thighs in dew.

I disappear

in a brace of 

birdcalls, barely

hold to the soft

sides of moss.

A sprig of wild

mint between my lips,

I suck and spit

like an insect.

My eyes adjust

to small signs:

grass tunnels –

mole or vole, hare

flushed by fox.

The mind makes names

of endings – mouse

hair in the scat

of coyote, black-

berry in the scat

of bear – then

follows its nose

to where the tale

begins, down

to the roots

and rot.

Neil Shepard is an award-winning American poet, essayist, professor of creative writing, and literary magazine editor. He is a recipient of the 1992 Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry, as well as a recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the MacDowell Colony. He has published eight books of poetry to positive reviews, his latest being How It Is: Selected Poems. He lives half the year in Johnson, Vermont, and half in New York City, and he routinely participates in poetry readings and writing workshops throughout the United States.