Paula J. Lambert
Paula J. Lambert has published several collections of poetry including The Ghost of Every Feathered Thing (FutureCycle 2022) and How to See the World (Bottom Dog 2020). Awarded PEN America’s L’Engle-Rahman Prize for Mentorship, Lambert’s poetry and prose has been supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her work has been nominated for several Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. She is also a visual artist, small-press publisher, and nascent literary translator. More at https://paulajlambert.weebly.com/.
How to Trust the Moon (Chicken)
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because Chicken saw something fit to pursue. Chicken yearns,
and his commitment to what he yearns for is steadfast.
Maybe some sweet hen—maybe a rooster. Maybe a future,
or a chance to escape the farmer’s ax.
Chicken’s eyes are always ahead of his gait:
head thrusts forward, long neck locks into place,
and while his vision comes fully into focus,
one foot follows another, catching up.
The better question, maybe, is why Chicken
didn’t look back. Why no one taught him what a boundary was,
or that journeys like his have consequences.
Maybe Chicken, spared of the ax—
and who may have left hen and a couple of eggs behind—
saw only the sun rising and falling
and wanted to know where it went. Maybe he saw the moon
and dreamt the word derivative. Maybe he woke afraid.
Maybe he saw the greener pasture,
luxury condos, a convertible passing him by,
but listen:
Chicken’s eyes are stuck in their sockets.
His brain extends to his neck. Had he not escaped the farmer’s ax,
he might still have crossed that road.
He might have remembered a former life, some part of his past
he couldn’t quite grasp: tsunami’s wave heaving skyward,
earth giving way beneath his feet, the scream of a siren
right when the world went black.
Ask this: how life propels him forward.
Why he goes, and keeps going, despite the roar of doom and terror
that hits him along the way. How he follows the light
where it lands. How to trust the moon, and why
when he so often wants to cry, he so often laughs instead.
Turtle
for W.L.
I.
It was a long time ago.
I’ve written about it before,
that turtle in my rear-view mirror
spinning away from my car
like a lost hubcap.
What was I to do, so late for work,
so many students waiting?
Later, a few weeks,
a few months—who knows?
Another turtle, smashed
on the side of the road.
Different road, different county.
I on my bike this time, pedaling away
and away and away from my home
every afternoon. I learned
the smell of death that summer:
opossums, birds, this turtle
still alive, trying to retreat
into a shell smashed into itself,
pieces a bloody roadmap
of its stunted life—and mine.
Turtle said, This is what you did.
Look close so you won’t forget
I, too, had someplace to go.
II.
A friend tells me a dream
he’s had all his life. He’s a boy
wearing a mask wherever he goes.
Can you see the mask? I ask.
He smiles shyly and nods:
I see it. It’s a turtle.
III.
Not long ago, I learned
a turtle’s shell is not the little hat of a home
I’d always assumed. It’s skeleton—
part of the bone that makes up his body.
I ask my friend if he knows this.
He laughs and says yes:
I’ve learned this, too.
IV.
When I think of the hub-cap turtle,
I now see a prayer wheel
spinning. And I know that
smattering of bone was a gift.
Look where it’s led! To this
lost turtle-boy still in one piece.
To a woman, scarred and a little less lost,
dreaming through daylight of the way
that time spins away, the way
some pieces come together, the way
some people, crashing through life,
find their way back to the road
they travel, every loss and every wound
part of the air they breathe.
Which is not to say sentient creatures
didn’t die—or that they won’t.
Only that the living wind shushing
toward them and through them and away
has met all the plodding creatures
who traveled the road before them,
knows all the plodding creatures
who follow.
