Dress me in moss. Adorn 
my hair with dandelions. 
Hum our songs as you 
drip water from the spring 
over my closed eyes and 
cheeks. Carry me through 
the maples to the lakeside 
where the widest sycamore 
leans. Call to the birds then. 
Summon the muskrat. 
Remember I am with you—
the wind will remind. 
Listen for crickets and bees, 
my loves, and for my 
presence, mycorrhizal. 

Heather Swan’s

poems have appeared in such journals as Terrain, Poet Lore, Phoebe, The Raleigh Review, The Hopper, Minding Nature, Midwestern Gothic, and Cold Mountain, and in many anthologies. She is the author of the poetry collection A Kinship with Ash (Terrapin Books), which was a finalist for the ASLE Book Award, and the chapbook The Edge of Damage ( Parallel Press), which won the Wisconsin Chapbook Award. Her second full-length collection, Dandelion (Terrapin), is forthcoming in fall 2023. She has received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, the August Derleth Prize for Poetry, the Maud Weinshenk Award, and an honorable mention for the Lorine Niedecker Award.

Her nonfiction has appeared in Aeon, Belt, Catapult, Edge Effects, Emergence, ISLE, Minding Nature, and The Learned Pig. Her book Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field (Penn State Press) won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. A companion book, Where the Grass Still Sings: Stories of Insects and Interconnection, will be published in spring 2024. She teaches environmental literature and writing in Madison, Wisconsin.

Author’s website: www.heatherswan.net