REVOLUTIONARY LETTER

by Claire Bowman

      after Diane di Prima 

for all the creatures who have taught me how to resist & survive

even in the heat leering

volcanic        on the cusp of April 

as weather patterns        mutate 

in an expression       of suffering

I celebrate the whooping crane 

hunting minnows in the wetlands 

I celebrate 

       the Mexican long-nosed bat 

dazed        on agave nectar

or        finding sanctuary in cool caves

I celebrate the rare        Barton Springs salamander

its branching gills             coral fronds

breathing in the world           like a poet 

I know        who has changed     me 

with her undefended          heart

yes, I celebrate Annar whose name means pomegranate

which finds a way to grow         even here, 

drenched   in an excess of Texas      sun

& poets, sowing    heirloom griefs     that bud, that break 

through     cemetery soil—           I celebrate you

     when endangered

by a toxic gospel               you create    sanctuaries 

where     our softest       gossamer-winged desires

can gather   & survive,      yes, 

I have been radicalized

      by              tenderness 

restored by    queer & tendrilled care

& so, I celebrate mónica, who taught me       the syntax 

of Panhandle & the romance of anarchic thought  

I celebrate Taisia, who taught me to sup

on creaturely kernels of           language 

& Kate who taught me how to whisper

with a poem     as with the ghost    of a bird

yes, I celebrate Bianca & Cloud & Sequoia

who summon            verse from the twisted caverns 

     of heartbreak    & history &        song 

I celebrate the I Scream Socialists

  who gather nefarious 

     & raw to hear poems      drip

like melting continents,          & still 

dream        of restoration 

for there will be no divine rapture

no exodus from the desert       to the stars

yes, the poets here         in Texas

are defiant,      fireproof     

they are stellar transgressions    growing    

poems     from dry limestone

& their names are written in the foliage

of this book, fresh from the sun & gathering

along the shaded banks of the aquifer’s backbone

ready to commune 

& croon 

     & hold each other to life.