Three Things I’m Curious About #52
The Pink Fairy Armadillo lives almost entirely underground so scientists know very little about it. It’s so secretive and unusual looking that some people don’t believe it’s real (it is!).
Earth, Sometimes I Try to Play It Casual,
A poem by Catherine Pierce
like Hey mercury, hey malachite, I’m busy today,
can’t stop to marvel, but always my blood is saying
O god you starsprung miracle. It’s self-preservation,
letting myself believe laundry matters,
letting myself believe there’s anything other than
egrets and oceans and vast moss carpets and
the finite heart of every single person I love.
Earth, you terrify me—you are fierce green
and honeysuckle, you are herds of wild ponies,
and you are leaving, always. Is it any wonder
some days I look at my laptop instead of out
the window? Every time I glance up
there you are, quaking me with your fern fronds
and silver frost. O you of the rhyolite mountains.
You of the dew-hung web. You are lemon quartz
and quicksand. Muskrats and starfish. How
could I be any way but staggered? O blue spruce,
O white fir, O green forever, you know
my nonchalance is a sham. It’s so hard to admit
our real desires. Earth, what I want is to sit gentle
under your twilight purple, watch your bats
hunt and dive. What I want is to know about
endings and still love each bat, each shade
of the boundless, darkening sky.
via Sierra Magazine
The bluebuck antelope is only known from a handful of museum specimens after being hunted to extinction at the beginning of the 19th century. A new specimen has recently been found.
