Witch-hazel, snowdrops, spring food for bees,
birdsong backdrop to frog’s morning plunge.
Sunlight-filtered shade, space to play. Ponds
and reed-filled ditches a vast urban sponge.
Networks of waterways and trees, dragonflies and hedgehogs
roam pathways of delight in nature’s diversity.
Wetlands, nature’s great filters. Clean water,
build resilience in the face of flood’s adversity.
Farm like an ecosystem, building biodiversity.
Deep roots, entwined with mushrooms, an intricate weave.
Groundwater replenished, rain slowed by watershed’s trees,
Absorbed in rich soil and fallen leaves.
Rainforests create their own weather,
banks of clouds reflect sunlight, cool land.
Forests a huge water pump, rainclouds drift over
continents, bring rain inland, relief from parched sand.
Translated by:
Bertony Louis
Poet
Bertony Louis is a Haitian poet whose work bridges cultures, languages, and continents. Winner of nineteen international poetry awards and author of Recovering the Horizons (Recoudre les Horizons) (L’Appeau Strophe, 2022), he has received prestigious fellowships and residencies, including the Scholars at Risk Program at Harvard University and the Artist Protection Fund. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Harvard Review, Pinhole Poetry, North of Oxford Review, Entrevous, Eunoia Review, and Oupoli. Exploring themes of nature, brotherhood, displacement, sadness, and exile, his work has been presented in readings and workshops across Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. He is currently a Research scholar Fellow in residence at Carnegie Mellon University and Writer in Residence at City of Asylum in the United States.
He has translated RoundView poems into French, and has worked with the team on developing our understanding of poetry as pedagogy and how multi-lingual poetry helps us to learn.