EKPHRASIS
poetry by Martin Baglach
In an effort to create new dialogs between the arts and sciences, the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History asked local writers, musicians, and artists to interpret and comment upon the museum's collection. These three poems were the result of an ekphrastic poetry event that featured local poets writing about three objects that were selected by the museum's staff and curators because of their unique implications. Photos below are from the museum.
The Memory of Forgotten Things
(Bird Nest with Eggs, Found in 1903 by Junius Henderson)
Dirty wool decanted by a hundred years
A blade of grass soldered to a hair
Strands of circled stuff
Woven through us like a wish
Henderson gives us
One tiny naked thing
Pulled from forever like a tooth
With only hearts inside our chests—our breaths
Are as fragile as those eggs
This life weighs heavy on its branch
So we cradle it in our palms
We keep it in a box
Time hums a temporary tune
Is now not the memory of forgotten things?
A Bird Nest with Eggs
This bird nest with 3 eggs were collected in June 1903 by Junius Henderson (1865-1937), founder of the University of Colorado Museum.
A Puzzle Made of Stone
(Turtle Fossil from the Eocene Era)
Beyond the era of eras
Before ice carved ripples in the ground
Grew this tortoise
In a forest you have never seen
Made from air and dust
Just particulates of fate
Our tortoise roamed the earth
Before time itself was timed
Having died nowhere ever named
Covered by dirt and leaves
Its flesh forgot its bones
And those bones became white rock
This tortoise waited
Thirty-million-some-odd years
To be found and meticulously reborn
From a puzzle made of stone
Hands reached into the ground
To unfreeze a second of eternity
And new bones rebuilt old bones
As if a life is understood
Shell
This shell belongs to the tortoise Stylemys, from the Eocene Epoch, 33-34 million years ago. The fossil was collected in the Nebraska badlands in 1980.
Stitching a Space in Time
(Inupiat Sewing Kit)
Found frozen in old earth
This forgotten sewing kit
Waited through sunless winters
Like a secret not quite kept
Fingers pushed bone needles
Through gutted flaps of fur
In this ancient dance
Cold hands pulsed patterns into clothes
For years that string of skin
Was pulled through skin by skin
To make a coat or hat
And now our whale fat dream
Burns like a spark
In a sea of time
Let us drink from this thimble filled with air
Until we are drunk
On memories we have never known
Sewing Kit
This portable Inupiat Sewing Kit (date undetermined) was collected from the Kotzebue Penisula in northwest Alaska. It is made from a bird bone needle case with ivory stoppers on a leather thong. Threaded through the thong is an eyed ivory needle.
