The poem below is the title poem of the fourth section of Geranium Lake. It was written for National Poetry Month in 2019. HERE is the post from way back then. The poems in this section are all, in one way or another, about the artistic priniciples and practice derived from the natural world, or, more accurately, the non-human natural world, since humans, too, are part of nature. (The amnesiac part, I often think–the tiny drop that thinks itself separate from the ocean.)

Ichthyography
  
 What would it be like, the writing
 of fish? Something shining, I think,
 a muscular, flowing
 calligraphy, 
 a Piscean script—
 accents of whirlpool
 and fin flip.
  
 Shimmering, 
 colorful circumlocutions
 used, like kennings, over and over, 
 and with lots of sudden twists
 and turns in the plot, breaks
 long as winter, slower to resolve
 than river fog rising.
  
 What would it be like 
 to write not with ink
 or light but with water?
 Describing each fresh syllable 
 with my whole body, then
 erasing it all as I go,
 every gesture a metaphor?
 
Leslie Schultz 

May this be a day when every cloud shape and tree branch finds a way to speak to you! LESLIE