Noting that Deming characteristically confronts “issues head-on,” Carrie Shipers suggests in a review of Genius Loci that for this poet, “fully understanding our place in the world is possible only if we are willing to consider the consequences of existence.”² Deming returns from her journeys with the news that we are not helpless to address the world’s wounding. She is a pragmatic visionary, describing with great precision how nature functions, getting the names right, as Shipers notes. We encounter in her poems the eloquent belief that writing poetry—because of poetry’s capacity to foster attentiveness—can be a part of the efforts needed to care for and to heal the earth.

Deming’s tonal shifts from despair to courage are deft. Consider how a poem about a visit to Arizona’s National Forest imagines the land itself inventing humans “to do the work the word ‘care’ implies, / . . . so that death does not get the last word” (“National Forest”). In a poem addressed to the future, she presents the efforts we make now to undo the damage, however modest they may seem, as re-weaving the unraveling “threads of hope /out of the air as if we had / the skill to weave them / back into webs” (“Letter To 2050,” emphasis added). In another poem, she recounts the story of a child of Bergen-Belsen survivors who keeps the gold bracelet his parents retrieved after their liberation in a safe, which she compares to the work a poet can do in a poem:

We see with these compact, “broken” lines, punctuated by spaces suggesting both human and environmental wounds, how they comprise fragments which connect us to stories memorializing defiance, survival, and that element most essential to life: love. This is, as Deming puts it in another poem, “art as healing grace” (“The Excavations”).

As a writer, Deming has been prodigious. In 1990, a recent Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and NEA recipient, she arrived at the University of Arizona as the new Director of the Poetry Center. Her debut collection of poems, Science, won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1994, soon followed by major works in environmental writing, creative nonfiction, and poetry, including Writing the Sacred into the Real (prose), Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit (essays), and Genius Loci and Rope (poetry). In 2014, Deming was appointed the Agnes Nelms Haury Chair in Environment and Social Justice. Among many other honors, she has received a second NEA Fellowship (1995), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), and a four-year fellowship from the Borchard Foundation (2021-2024). This year, she published two books, The Gift of Animals, an edited anthology of animal poems, and Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower, her eighth collection of poems, from which the poems in this feature are drawn. I am thrilled to introduce Alison Hawthorne Deming and her work to Persimmon Tree readers.

Little Floating Pearl, India ink, oil paint, mica, 23k gold leaf on yupo mounted on panel, by Karen Fitzgerald

Whatever lives on Isabela  Fernandina  Santiago
flew or swam or drifted  on a mat of weeds  and landed
on hardened lava  ropey swirls of rock  motion frozen
but apparent  in patterns  left on black ground
where only one plant  a spindly reddish-yellow  lacework
cares to root  and rooting begins to think  this could work
the way a mind  does after thinking  I’m done there is
nothing left for me  to say or do or love  in a world of wounds
then some little tendril  reaches out  from the split seed
that a seabird has carried  by accident  in its webbed foot
and a story begins  and branches out  and finds the light
and doesn’t care  how little rain  will fall as long
as it has a place  to fix itself  and sift the mist
that blows inshore  thanks to  the music of the spheres
and maybe  as the tendrils grow  they find the hostile place
has become a home  and the seed  has redefined the word it was
because all it ever wanted  was to begin again  and so

Oh sure  one or two  beady skinned monsters
ridge backed  long clawed  blunt headed
might have made it  floating from Ecuador  on a broken tree limb
but how to explain  thousands upon thousands  queued up in 
group salutes to the sun  or lying together by dozens  disguised
as rocks to spoon  one spiny claw  draped over the shoulder
of another  and then they wake  scurry in waddling gait
to water’s edge  dive and swim  gleaning seaweed 
off underwater rock  adapted we say  like novel to movie
from land feeders  to marine machines  no predatory neighbors
it’s just  one long beach party  a sea lion or two    
lumbering up  to sleep on the sand  good friends
says the guide  about every living thing  though of course
eating is a factor  shark takes sea lion pup  hawk takes turtle egg.
Flightless cormorants  are the norm  hanging out
micro-wings to dry  they gave up  building big wings
so easy was the catch  along shore  in time their prey
will learn to fear  but now the immigrants  make it look easy
to inhabit a place  that never before  was home new land
no springs no rivers  just every organism’s  joy to thrive.

Imposters in the water  we look ridiculous
but who’s watching us?  Plastic fins and masks
false skin zipped on  to protect from cold
pallid faces down  on the platter of the sea
we are nothing  like the orange anemone
glued to rock wall  combing the slosh
with its—what?—  tentacles? but then again
the anemone is an animal  pretending to be plant
the sea lion a mammal  pretending to be a fish
the marine iguana  a lizard pretending to be eel
parrot fish  surgeon fish  sergeant major
harlequin wrasse  fakers all  or so our words
would make them  because we can’t quite
believe the luck  to be a thing with eyes
looking at anything else with eyes  can’t quite bear
the weight of our terrestrial burden  so we float and kick
heads down imagining what  we might have been or will become.

The Pearl from the Sky, oil paint, mica, variegated leaf on yupo mounted on panel, by Karen Fitzgerald

The Squamscott River
 grew lazy in early summer—
muskrat rose and dove,
 heron swept the air and landed
and hemlocks that had survived
 another century’s practice
of harvesting their bark
 were thriving. Some suffered
beaver girdles and the predation
 by woolly adelgids but still
the pileated woodpeckers
 found what they required
in the snags. This is how it was
 for us—pulling threads of hope
out of the air as if we had
 the skill to weave them
back into webs. We surprised
 ourselves when it worked—
so much needed to be undone.
 And I promise you that
as paltry as our efforts
 may seem to you—no.
I won’t justify our failures.
 The story of the alewives’
return—that’s what I wanted
 you to know because it helps
to think of desires that last
 for centuries without being
satisfied. How far inland
 did the alewives come,
I wondered, the dam removed
 after three hundred years
and in the first year then
 they came in a rush.
Locals could hear the gulls
 gathered in the estuary
in their joy and the alewives
 swam and swam to the reaches
of their ancestors—eleven miles
 and three hundred years
of appetite for place
 their genes remembered
and knew how to find.
 The Abenaki offered
a welcome back ceremony
 and fishers gathered—human,
cat and bird to feast
 and the memory that had been
thwarted for centuries
 became a fertile flow.

Science wanted to know
what they know, sooty little
tube-nosed ocean runner,
fork-tailed forest-burrower,
night wanderer, transient in
the sweet musk of woods.
How do they find their way?
What’s their sense of place?
Do they know a sense of
belonging when they return
from a year at sea to breed
in the forest where they hatched?
Or is it just work to repair the burrow?
They stagger around at night
on forest paths. They don’t
understand the land
but they need it. A man
who studied the colony
for half a century took
some petrels to Ireland
to see if they could find
the way back. First bird returned
before the man did. Was it
nine days or thirteen?
Do the numbers matter
when the bird just knew,
its inner compass reading
longitude and latitude, skirting
open ocean swells to arrive
where it knew it should be?

At night the pairs chuckle and purr
sometimes in harmony
nestled in their burrows
ghosting the forest with
their chatter. They have a lot
to say after spending so long
in solitary flight with nothing
on their minds but light
and wind and the scent of prey
that draws them onward.
They might fly four hundred
kilometers from land
seeking lanternfish and krill,
loading oil to bring home
for the chick. They winter
at sea flying as far as South Africa,
intimate only with water
until some brain or body switch flips.
Who can explain the call
for another, the call for home?
Together again, same time,
same place, next year,
more faithful to burrow
than to spouse, grooming
the nest with soft leaves,
fresh grass, they talk
and talk throughout the night.

What did I know
lying in the darkness
where I had hatched?
At first I loved the smell
of loam, musk, the dampness
of the underneath. Then came
a fishy scent though
what did I know of fish?
Bill to bill my lunch
was served. I had no
control over where
I lived, when or what
I ate. But sufficient
to my status as a puff
of proto-feathers the meals
kept tunneling down
from the spot of light
at burrow’s end. I knew
to raise my mouth
to what arrived.
I had no idea what I was
or what I was meant to be.
Ridiculous, I know, that
I should have a voice.
Sleep and eat and roll over
in the earthen dark
that was life until
I grew so blubbered
I could barely turn in my sleep.
I squeezed out of that earthhold
when I caught the open ocean scent
that told me I had wings
and I was gone into
sea-spangled spume and sky.

Pool, India ink, oil paint, mica, 23k gold on yupo mounted on panel, by Karen Fitzgerald

His parents had spent six years  in Bergen-Belsen         
father a baker  each night stuffing a loaf
 
in each pant leg  bringing it to the barracks.         
He played violin  for Nazi dancers.
      
Mother sewed their uniforms.  One day an officer         
threw her into a machine  that took off her
 
wedding band finger.  The man who sat beside me
had seen a photo of  his mother holding him         
 
when he was a baby  that finger missing.        
Women, other prisoners,  mended the wound
 
stitching the gap  where the finger had been.
Stranger to stranger  the story unwound
 
like a spool of thread.  The repair was ragged         
but she left the scar that way.  Before she’d been taken
 
to the camp  she’d given a gentile friend
three treasures  a gold bracelet
 
links too heavy to wear  (it must have weighed
three or four pounds he said  a way to save the wealth)         
 
plus a ring and a rose gold watch  that hung on a necklace.
This was 1939. Six years later  they were liberated.
 
One man weighed sixty pounds.  When the baker ran up
to embrace the British liberator  the soldier said
 
he could barely feel  the man in his arms
so near had he come  to being a skeleton.
 
His parents returned  to their village
found the gentile woman.  She gave back
 
the bracelet and the ring.  The necklace
with pendant watch  she’d had to sell for food.
 
No recrimination  in my seatmate’s voice
who told me he kept  the bracelet in a safe deposit box        
 
as I have kept his story  in these broken lines        
to make of them  something almost whole.

A man told me this story  at the conference dinner
 big round table  with talk of books
 much wine  queso y jamon to start.
 
We shared an elegant salad  meant to be shared    
 vegetables built  into a turret     
we dismantled  and placed  on our plates
 
bits of partridge nestled  in the leaves.    
 Are they wild? I asked.  Not this time of year.
 Wild ones leave buckshot  in your mouth.
 
 Narrow pointed red peppers  pimientos?
 stuffed with cod.
The man had grow up  during Franco’s regime
 
his father returning  from service
 in the civil war.  There were no jobs.
He found work  cutting wood
 
 Franco’s plan to build  water works that even
 after all  the cruelty
 people see  was a good deed.
 
The man  a Spanish scholar  of American lit
 then a boy  remembered how
 the family had moved  hut to hut
 
in the woods  building a new shelter
 as the cutting  progressed.
 They lived on rabbits  lizards and frogs.
 
The meal and the wine  went on and on
 fish wrapped in  thin strips of zucchini
 fig ice cream with currants
 
 chocolate grenache  bellota liqueur
and joy in conversation.  We had gathered      
 to talk about animals  and what kind of animal
 
 we humans might be.  Mother tamped down
the cook fire.  Father slept off the ache
 of labor.  Love kept us alive, he said.       
 
He had heard  as a boy  half asleep 
 on forest ground        
the wolves howl  (sing I think he said)       
 
 and he was not afraid.  Hearing him      
seeing the love  (the man’s name was Jesús)      
 on his face  I thought again
 
maybe the animals  who were the first gods 
 in the childhood  of humanity     
might be the last gods  in our desanctified world.

The Bighorn Fire came within a mile of my house.
It owned me for several weeks. The smoke
stopped my daily walks and kept windows
closed day and night. Go-bag ready, I watched
the mountains, fireline brilliant orange
against char of night, as the blaze
snaked along the ridge in its advance,
closer and closer, then farther and farther
as crews turned the fire, driving it away
from our homes. The buck made his way
from Doug firs to townhomes,
over four-foot brick wall to my birdbath.
I caught him on a field cam after my swiss chard
and lettuce were chomped to the nubs
and I couldn’t picture what creature
could wreak such damage. But when
I imagined the cost for him to grow
the six-point rack that shone in the photo
like branches of a moonlit tree, when
I imagined the thorny scrub he’d fed on
as he fled his range, and then his pleasure
finding tender green leaves, new to his palate,
soft on his lips, yielding to blunt teeth,
I felt the fool—no—criminal for thinking
him the thief when our kind has stolen
nearly everything from the animal world.

Our guide shared the story
 of a prophecy:
the queen told her two sons
 the brother who kisses
his mother first
 will be king.
One fell. The other stood
 and kissed her.
She chose the fallen one.
 Why
the other protested when
 I kissed you first?
Yes but your brother
 kissed Mother Earth.
It’s a good story
 to tell at Delphi
where it took a woman
 to inhale the vapors
rising from a crack
 in the hide
of ragged Mt. Parnassus
 and speak truth
to priests though her words
 were unintelligible
so they made up
 what they wanted to hear
and called it prophecy.
 No matter. Walking
among those ruins
 rock nuthatches
singing loud all around
 it’s impossible not to feel
the importance to the ones
 who prayed
and the ones who paid
 for the privilege
of asking questions
 there at the omphalos
where the surface opens
 to the depths. Goats
first identified the spot
 dancing drunk
in the fumes. You can feel
 the weight of time
layered like sedimentary rock
 Gaian worship to Pythian serpent
to Apollo that god of order
 harmony and music
who had to spend eight years
 as a mortal to be cleansed
after killing the python
 who guarded the site.
All buried under stone
 the old beliefs
so lost that peasants
 built the village of Kastri
out of the sanctuary’s rubble.
 So hidden was Delphi
even its location unknown
 for centuries
that excavations only began
 in 1892. If not for
the persistence of stories
 the dig would never have begun
no pick or shovel or fox hair brush
 no slow reveal
no astonishment
 at what the excavations
exposed—art as healing grace.
 Ray and I arrived
at the Temple of Apollo
 from our separate
walks in the ruins
 sat on the stone wall.
It was nothing we’d planned
 or discussed. I saw him
rest his palms upturned
 on his knees and I
met his gesture with my own.
 We sat that way
at a distance in quiet
 palms raised
ready to receive
 the light that might
fall into them
 from that elevated air.

Welkin 2, black spray paint, oil point, mica, 12k gold on yupo mounted on panel, by Karen Fitzgerald

Dear America, please, it’s time to feel the pain that underlies your cruelty
and tend to it. This was twenty years ago, the cabbie said. I was riding
with him to a hotel in Revere, Massachusetts. I was dancing at a club, he said,
with this beautiful Venezuelan girl. This was Boston. He’d been
in the city already six years. Puerto Rican, he said. He’d voted for Trump,
what his mother keeps telling him was the worst decision of his life,
so many suffering at home after the storm. Without water or power.
Venezuela helped. Brazil helped. Nothing from the U.S., he said.
 
I told him I live in Arizona—so much suffering on the border.
His mother, he said, says God doesn’t want people to suffer like that.
That night in the club, he said, agents burst in, started rounding up people.
The Venezuelan was terrified. My 9-year-old daughter is home sleeping,
she whispered. I can’t let them take me. He whispered back. Whatever they ask you
just say, Yes. Just say, Yes. He took her hand and walked up to the agents.
Are you a citizen? Yes, he said. I’m Puerto Rican and this is my wife. Yes, she said.
He held her hand. He saw her years later. She whispered, You saved my life.

Dear America, let’s take the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. Let’s spread
our beach blankets out beneath the chains cut from her unshackled feet.
Let’s bring the Coke and Sprint and Arizona Iced Tea.
Let’s share potato salad and taquitos, hot dogs and tofurkey.
Let’s sing the song we learned in high school and mean it:
Send these and I lift and golden shores. Bring your service dog and parakeet.
Your grandmother and the neighbor you dislike. Bring Kavanaugh McConnell
Hannity Ingraham. Tell them they can wear no make-up and no suit
 
and they can’t say a word. But they must eat what’s given and give thanks
with a nod. They must do the dishes and clean up the trash. They must count
how many dandelions have bloomed in the grass, how many gulls
have stopped by for a snack. Hey everyone, let’s quiet them, the voices
that deceive and suppress and betray and lie. Let’s show them
what language is for by making them hungry to connect. I know some
of you will want them to be your friends. That’s not their job.
Their job is come to the picnic and help clean up the mess.

Acknowledgments
 
Selected poems from Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower, by Alison Hawthorne Deming. Copyright © 2025 by Alison Hawthorne Deming. Reprinted by permission of the author and Red Hen Press.
 

1. Alison Hawthorne Deming, “Culture, Biology, and Emergence,” The Georgia Review, vol. 63, no. 1, 2009, pp. 78-79.

2. Carrie Shipers, “Alison Hawthorne Deming. Genius Loci,” Prairie Schooner, vol. 81, no. 1, 2007, p. 257.

3. From NOTES to Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower: “[J. Sterling Rockefeller] purchased Kent Island and donated it to Bowdoin College as a refuge for birds. In 1954 Chuck Huntington began his research on the Leach’s Storm petrels that nest in burrows on Kent…. His obituary states that he ‘amassed longitudinal data on a single population of animals over an interval and at the level of detail that are perhaps without equal in the field of biology.’”

Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower

by Alison Hawthorne Deming

  “I finished Alison Hawthorne Deming’s latest poetry collection, Blue Flax and Yellow Mustard Flower, and sat quietly absorbing it, stunned by its power. Deming is a writer whose work in both prose and poetry is deeply, lyrically engaged with the... world and what humans have done to the earth and all who live here. To assess the damage, to see for herself, she travels to earth’s farthest, wildest reaches. Her compassion for the brave and broken world she has found dovetails with her own fortitude and courage." —Cynthia Hogue, poetry editor of Persimmon Tree and author, most recently, of Instead, It is Dark "This collection is an homage to naturalists and explorers, to environmental consciousness, to curiosity and to service––it is a lyric acknowledgment of the delicate balance of life.” —Ellen Bass, author of In Indigo Available from Amazon, Bookshop, and your local independent bookstore.

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