“Day of the First Turtle” by Ann Leamon

Photo credit: Chastity Cortijo

The first turtle appeared today, its shell
gleaming in the spring sun
on the deadfall in the ice pond, stretching its head to soak up
every glowing ray after those
winter days in the chilly mud.

We hung back, not
because it’s a snapper—which
it was—but because turtle
food is hard to find so early. Let them save their calories.

The day of the first turtle
is unreliable, unlike
my aunt’s birthday.
Like a winter turtle,
she was present without
visibility. Her absence
trips me like a branch in the dark.

Dancer-turned-counselor,
she helped so many learn
to be better turtles,
to stick their necks out and,
when necessary,
to defend themselves.

Artist’s Statement

I pick up poems like lint on a dark suit. An image will take residence in my head and bedevil me until I write it down and, in that process, it often brings a friend I never knew it had, and the two vault the whole thing somewhere else. On a good day, it’s a quality of 1+1 equals five and a half. I hope that type of brain-explosion leads other people to their own unexpected connections.

Ann Leamon lives near a small ice pond and watches eagles build their nests, disturbs great blue herons (inadvertently), and observes turtles when allowed. She has degrees in German, Economics, and Poetry, and tries not to trip over them. Her poems have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Midcoast Poetry Journal, and The Lyric among others; her essays in RiverTeeth and the Boston Sunday Globe, and her reviews in Tupelo Quarterly, the Art Fuse, and Harvard Review. Recently, she’s lost a lot of beloved old people. Visit those in your life.