Song of the Wind

by Evelyn Pae

in this new age of machines

i am the racer who drives through the sky

the comb that rakes the long hair of the prairie

and sings her a lullaby when the nights grow cold

i am the paintbrush that moves the smoke.

i am the staircase of birds

and the highway of clouds.

the witchcraft of airplanes

and the blade of the arctic.

i am the bite that kills fox kits in the winter

and the gentle lover of the blossoming wheat.

i am the spruce tree’s dance,

the whip that drives the ocean

and the angle of the rain.

the silence beneath an owl’s wings

and the last breath of the mouse below.

in this loud age of machines

i am the only one left who remembers the words

to the tune stars wrote over earth’s hot cradle.

i sing them again as the stones turn over

and the skies grow black and warm.

i shriek them over the pounding of the sea

at the doors of the old lighthouses.

i whisper them to the rooftops

who clatter fearfully against the sunset.

my voice grows wild and sweet

and howls in the gap of the world to come.

~

Evelyn Pae is a second-year M.S. student at ESF studying phenological divergence between lab and wild-strain invasive spongy moth with Dr. Dylan Parry. In her spare time, she likes to read science fiction, volunteer with animals, and work on as-yet-unpublished novels with her partner. Contact her by email at [email protected].

Featured image: Image by Michael Schwarzenberger.

Artist note: I wrote these poems at various points in my life between the years 2018-2023. I had first become interested in climate change and the relationships between humans and nature a year earlier. In these poems I’ve tried to explore the sometimes-beautiful, sometimes-fraught relationship between science and art, the way their respective demands can sometimes seem irreconcilable, and yet how sometimes art can catch you when science fails—and vice versa. I’ve now been studying environmental subjects for close to 6 years, and have found poetry an invaluable means of abiding with and even embracing the many contradictions inherent in studying the natural world and our relationship with it (or should I say belonging-to it?) Thank you so much for reading.