The Snapping Turtle

knows her business. Her shell, skillet

large, iron hard like an army helmet,

mud splattered. Home always is

on her back: instinct her one

ambition: digging trenches, decoy

and real, before nightfall,

a half-dozen eggs stashed in

a neatly carved pit; covered

and forgotten on the side of the road

is ritual: is surrender. Her potential

offered up, which isn’t a guarantee

that her latest issues will survive

 the night, much less days and nights.                                                                       

 I know this: watching her

 ooze out one egg and another, dragging

 moist soil back over the shells’ luminous                                                      

 blue. Her dense tracks reveal this cache:

 feast before famine–

 the rustle coming from the thicket:                     

 so many half shells licked clean.                               

The Sanctuary

Moist and rusty,

that odor of the twice-swept dirt floor–

our Davy Crockett cabin hidden       

under pin oaks. Torn branches of lilacs

and tulips forced into wide mouth jars

jiggled on the weathered table set

with its plate of bologna and butter

sandwiches and pink lemonade

poured into short

on-the-rocks glasses.

                           From open windows

on all four walls, we watched a green                                   

world shiver– listened to the woods

rustling–  the cruel mockingbird

copying mother’s call, over

and over, toying

with our obedience, our reluctance 

to answer her needs.                          

The Weather of Transformation

1.

In April’s twitching light, leaf buds

gleam silver on windswept branches

that turn and turn and turn toward

the lake’s primrose sky.                                              

2.

In this warming atmosphere,

the steady trill of peepers

beneath black willows

chant: alive.

3.

The ruin of winter has almost

dissolved.  Yanty Creek swells

with clumps of wild irises, soon to be

yellow blooms candled by sun.

4.

Small motions stir grasses–

insects walkabout– a kingdom

built upon a spit of mud while

we weren’t looking.

5.

Stopping briefly at the marsh’s edge–

redwing blackbirds ride on plumes of

pampas grass until their wings

open sail– black and red against gold.

M.J.Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Forthcoming publications, her second full length collection Within Reach from Cherry Grove Collections and her chapbook As the Crow Flies from Foothills Publishing.  She is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College, Rochester, N.Y.