Herbarium

by Robert Miltner

Appalachian yellow asphodel, Georgia aster, Roan Mountain False goat’s beard, Falls-of-the-Ohio scurfpea; Have you made an herbarium?; Mendicino Cox apple, Newtown Pippin, Siberian crabapple, Northern Spy; It would be such a treasure to you; Alpine Alexandria strawberry, Elderberries, American gooseberry, Saskatoon berries; I can make some additions to it; Red Zebra tomato, Chinese Giant sweet pepper, Mary Washington asparagus, Catskill Brussels Sprouts; Flowers growing around here; Covent Garden White Baby’s breath, California poppy, Four O’Clocks, Love-lies-bleeding; On the other side of the ocean; Henderson Lima bean, Fiddlehead ferns, Crenelated yellow carrots, Big Jim peppers; Entire ecosystems are collapsing; Peruvian lily, Texas wild rice, Western Prairie fringed orchid, Bee balm; Beginning of a mass extinction; Ivory-billed woodpecker, Carolina parakeet, Passenger pigeon, Hawai’ian honeycreeper; All they can talk about is money; Sampson’s pearlymussel, Lake Erie white heelsplitter, Tennessee riffleshell, Scioto pigtoe; Young people understand betrayal; Blue pike, Great Lakes blackfin cisco, Longnose gar, Harelip sucker; Eyes of all future generations; Inca plum, Pakistan white mulberry, Hendre Huffcap pear, Weeping Santa Rose plum; Who have to live with the consequences; Cranesbill geranium, Black-eyed Susan, Paperwhite, Narcissus.

Robert Miltner’s collections of prose poetry are Hotel Utopia (New Rivers Press/Many Voices Award, 2011) and Orpheus & Echo (Etruscan Press, 2020); his prose poetry chapbooks include Against the Simple (Kent State UP /Wick Chapbook Award), and Eurydice Rising (Red Berry Editions Chapbook Award); his collection of short fiction is And Your Bird Can Sing (Bottom Dog Press).