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Anthropocene Pastoral

By Subhaga Crystal Bacon

This is the anti-garden. It tends itself.
Its shine of blooms a blanket of sun.

It has its own water in hidden springs
bathing aspen, burdock and sage.

It has its own wisdom in berries and leaves.
Landscaped by deer, coyote, and cat

that fertilize it with bones and scat.
Its grasses are varied and profuse,

green for a short spell, then brown
a long while before they’re spun to gold.

All the mistakes we’ve made dry the land
and fire licks it clean, blackened into rest.

This is the garden that I love best:
resilient garden of the Anthropocene West.

 

 

 

Listen as Subhaga Crystal Bacon reads Anthropocene Pastoral.
Added: Friday, October 18, 2024  /  Used with permission.
Subhaga Crystal Bacon
Photo by AKR Studio.

Subhaga Crystal Bacon (they/them) is the author of four collections of poetry including, most recently, the Isabella Gardner Award-winning Transitory (BOA Editions, 2023), a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry in 2024, and Surrender of Water in Hidden Places (2023), winner of the Red Flag Poetry Chapbook Prize, and released in a second edition in the summer of 2024. They are a teaching artist in schools and libraries as well as working with private students individually and in groups. A Queer elder, they live in rural northcentral Washington on unceded Methow land.

Image Description: Subhaga Crystal Bacon sits on a rock outdoors. They have long blonde hair and wear glasses and a plaid shirt.

Other poems by this author

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