Poetry

SUMMER 2023

Being Oyamel

by RUTH NAKAMURA

I am cloud grove, relic of a cooler planet,
having retreated to the mountain tops of Michoacan;
here I wait, yearly, for the sky to shiver,
for the stained glass souls,
little flames fluttering,
gold dust of knowledge sifting from their wings
all over me.

I celebrate this,
shift my position among the starlit backdrop of nights
sharp as obsidian veins
to accommodate their million small brilliancies,
Danaus plexippus, monarchs, tigers of milkweed,
huddled with a sound of rustling, a song soft as rain.

I accept their weight; I honor their mythology,
the stories of how they first found me,
grove that shelters, santuario for wintering over.

Watercolor by Sarah Mapps Douglass (ca. 1833)

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Ruth Nakamura

Ruth Nakamura is from the high desert, where she grew up very attuned to nature in the Rio Grande valley. She co-wrote a book of poetry, Crow Moon, with her comadre Anna Griego, with whom she has shared poetry and friendship for many years. In 2021 and 2022, Ofrenda Magazine published two of Ruth’s essays, and Cordelia Press published two of her poems. The chapbook, Root Women, a collaboration with Anna Griego and Jerry Martinez, is now available. Other recent publications appear in Witchology Magazine and Poetry As Promised.