Today’s guest is Flagstaff-based poet Larry Stevens. He’s perhaps best known for his five-decade career as an ecologist and Grand Canyon river-runner. According to Stevens, his inspirations and insights for his poetry often occur while he’s exploring Arizona’s diverse and ancient landscape. He shares a piece called “Dinosaurs, Snow.”
Larry Stevens: I’m intently involved in science activities—working on interactions between water, the changing Earth and life. As I go along, I sometimes get into states that are like epiphanies, or maybe they are epiphanies. And I come armed to those epiphanies with a pencil because much energy and words and music seems to flow from those strange points in life. The epiphany might not be very coherent, what comes out of it might not be very coherent, and it takes some time to edit after that. But I do honor those moments.
Dinosaurs, Snow
Dinosaurs, snow,
the million ways of scattered bones or children
or sycamore leaves in the ballpark by the river,
I found tracks there, like those in Chinle Shale, but smaller,
a fan – three slashes, webbed pigeon-toes,
the steps short and awkward, stunted in the melting
as if walking was new, clumsy,
and they were at odds with their feet.
They led back to water.
Permo-Triassic feet,
the gifted lucky step out from limbic mud
towards unknowing betterment,
beauty, love, reason, truth,
sneakers,
But evolution is not a just game (we’re it, thanks).
Through each Cretaceous increment, codon by codon,
concatenating almost
but not quite unremembered mistakes,
like your naked grandfather’s footsteps
coming up dark hallway stairs,
finally done with the day’s so many chores.
Like the Miocene
an epoch in the flock’s common dream
and distant homeland
where gazers left our tracks by marshes, watching flights,
whose turnings wrenched us from their vision and left this moment,
our conscious now (the instant never reached but an accident too soon).
They wheel up honking from willows in purple dusk,
restlessly rise and circle,
listening through their wings for the sound
in the sky to tell them,
“Alright, you can return now,”
But the voice doesn’t speak to them tonight, and winter stays on.
They return to Earth
and leave another night’s set of toed-in dinosaur tracks
in ballpark snow by the river.
Larry Stevens is an ecologist, longtime Grand Canyon river-runner and poet. He oversees the Springs Stewardship Institute, a Flagstaff nonprofit that focuses on improving scientific understanding and management of spring ecosystems. He recently completed an anthology of poems celebrating the interface of earth, water and life.
Poetry Snaps is produced by KNAU Arizona Public Radio and airs on the first and third Friday of each month.
About the host:
Steven Law is the co-producer of KNAU’s series PoetrySnaps! He is a poet, essayist, storyteller, and the author of Polished, a collection of poems about exploring the Colorado Plateau by foot and by raft.
About the music:
Original music by Flagstaff-based band Pilcrowe.