fantastic giant tortoise

On Twitter recently, the poet Jessica Smith recently linked to this article and said, "I want to be a fantastic giant tortoise with my one wild and precious life, can I file for a transfer?" I wrote a poem in response, thinking about "my one wild and precious life," a phrase which, though I understand what Mary Oliver means, of course, and why people are attracted to its seize-the-dayness, also, to me, doesn't speak to the interconnectedness of our lives and a sense of what is large than the single span from "first cry to last sigh."

fantastic giant tortoise

for Jessica Smith

 

the words go back to change what the words once were

I will be a fantastic giant tortoise in my next life, too

 

never extinct they didn’t know where I was

the whole time I was

 

a lone female settled on an isolated vegetation patch

I will be a fantastic giant tortoise in my next life, too

 

the words go back to change what the words once were

my DNA the same as another giant tortoise found in 1906

 

wild and precious life intertwined 

I will be a fantastic giant tortoise in my next life, too