(Written in hospital, November, 2011)
all along the downed log
in Trenton’s old marsh
I mean really old
as in ten thousand years of
Lenni Lenape presence
a coalescence of tribes
after the long months
begun by hunger’s moon
the rising of
new pickerel weed
arrayed along greening banks
signals departure
from inland hunting lives
to sea gathering
but first, this time together
in the Marsh
I descend to the log
studying, not touching
pierced silvery ovals
of bone / feather / fur
they seem arranged
for rituals
by men with lithe
cinnamon bodies
kneeling in loin cloths
of old deerskin
and new beads
Carolyn Foote Edelmann is a poet who must be out in nature, in addition to serving as Community Relations Associate for D&R Greenway Land Trust. In the 1970s, she was the first member of the community accepted into Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program. Carolyn is the co-founder of Princeton’s Cool Women Poets.
(Editor’s Note: An owl eats its prey whole, so their pellets frequently include exoskeletons and other indigestible parts of the animals they eat.)
