Good News for Humans

Excerpt from Good News for Humans

Destruction hasn’t been your only story. 
All living things beyond you that you’ve loved,
you’ve made love live in them: at the junction
of chocolate & cream-colored rings on the king
snake’s skin, in the morning sparkle of cows’
dewy slobber all over the pasture, in the powerful
slice of a gator’s tail, in the 5 a.m. ruckus
of capercaillie lek (males squawk and spin, even when
no female’s near), in the scraggly herd
of tule elk stepping through patchy fog
in the green coast hills; you’ve made love
live on the tops of hippos’ ever-growing
teeth, and in the osprey’s perfect talon-open moment
before splashdown, in the monkey’s
soft hair, and in the four toes
on a gray wolf’s hidden print; just by noticing
the sparkling blue gem at the dragon’s forehead,
you’ve made love live there, too.

— Maria Melendez, 2013
Quaker poet