The Summons
By Tamara Saimons
When the wild summons
murmurs its heavy magic through skin, heart and spine
however the spell wafts in you, however you hear it,
you ramble out for the revelry of trails, of remote terrain
and remember how to return
primitive as you already are
to be the fierce pulse for river,
schist or sandstone
for ice
for the tiniest silvery glint of gills in a drying streambed.
It’s possible to be reclaimed whole
in this way, to when your marrow rooted
rapt with the unfettered reverie of trees
and sang hymns to the vast elixir of stars.
Even shorn from your true skin and obscured
for this long
you are still caught prey to the flit of feathered sunlight or chirp
that reels you in
you still do stop in mid-step with head cocked upward
ear or eye swept by the ordinary lift
of cliff swallows in the river canyon.
Imperiled and complicit, we stifle the summons
but its fervent wish for the incantation
of clicks, howls, warbles and shrieks
to be heard
burns and breaches to be seen.
Not in any sphere of this life are you excused from this behest
Summoned as you are to wild from birth
More about Tamara Saimons:
Tam is a family nurse practitioner in Albuquerque, putterer, pizzaiola, and gardener. They live with their wife Kathryn, 3 dogs and 2 cats in the north valley and are devoted to the support, recognition and love of the wild.
