I watch the brown puffs of sparrow. They are so many, and so common.
In an instant, this could be over. In an instant, nuke or storm could hit,
as it has, or worse. Now only, can we feel the air settle in our lungs,
can we preserve the Earth, can we blow at the stalk of dandelion seeds.
This is not a question. Now is not a question. —The yellow-fanned
dandelions are alive! — But what about their seeds blown in today’s
noon air— lifting off rooftops… will they survive?
Poem by Ahrend Torrey
Ahrend Torrey enjoys exploring nature in southern Louisiana where he lives with his husband Jonathan, their two rat terriers Dichter and Dova, and Purl their cat. He is the author of Bird City, American Eye forthcoming from Pinyon Publishing (Montrose, CO) in 2022, and Small Blue Harbor published by the Poetry Box Select imprint (Portland, OR) in 2019. His work has appeared in storySouth, The Greensboro Review, and The Perch (a journal of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, a program of the Yale School of Medicine), among others. He earned his MA and MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and is a recipient of the Etruscan Prize awarded by Etruscan Press.