Small

Creatures
Volume 1
small creatures
Vol. I
Songs for Animal Love
Connor Grogan
Acknowledgements
I oIIer my sincerest acknowledgements to the Iollowing publications in which
some oI these poems were Iirst printed:
'Song Ior Spider Love, Four and Twentv
Thank you Irom the bottom oI my heart to Aracelis Girmay, Ior suggesting what
became Songs Ior Animal Love, & Heather Madden, Ior the encouragement in
writing 'small creatures.
Cover Art: 'The Anatomy Lesson, by Caleb Colpitts
Copyleft (+) Connor Grogan, 2013
This work of art is free, you can redistribute it and/or modify it
according to terms of the Free Art License. You will find a
specimen of this license on the site Copyleft Attitude
http://artlibre.org as well as on other sites.
This book was published in the United States by The Brave
Folk Poetry Collective
This book is dedicated to mv friends & familv. Specificallv Tom
McOscar, for planting the seed, Seth Livingstone, whose poetrv
has acted as a constant source of inspiration, mv parents, &
Hampshire Colleges Brave Folk Poetrv Collective
Contents
5 Song Ior Cardinal Love
6 Song Ior Fox Love
7 Song Ior Spider Love
8 Song Ior Sparrow Love
9 Song Ior Lepidoptera Love
11 Song Ior Magpie Love
12 Song Ior Whale Love
13 Song Ior Deer Love
14 Song Ior Woodpecker Love
15 Song Ior Robin Love
16 Song Ior Crow Love
17 Song Ior Cricket Love
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small creatures
Volume I
Songs Ior Animal Love
Song for Cardinal Love
Perched Ior just a moment on an upturned wheelbarrow,
a cardinal sits in silence.
You sit, sometimes, quiet like a cardinal, all red, regal plumage
& a songbird's voice.
You sing loud&proud a bright, vibrant voice
to warm our home.
You, passerine, whistle me awake with my windows
open in the morning.
Woman, wake me weary, obstinate out oI sleep &
in to the chilly, morning draIt!
BeautiIul bird, your wingbeat thrush&Ilutter in my backyard
reminds me I am not alone.
5
Song for Fox Love
"Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin
the vinevards, our vinevards that are in bloom"
~Solomons Song of Songs
I.
Curled up by the Iire
in our den, like
two Ioxes,
bright-eyed &
bushy-tailed, we
will play house,
& kitchen games,
& animal love, too,
II.
We will, prancing, venture out
Irom this, our cozy burrow home,
to loaI and invite our own souls.
Darling, let us go down to the vineyards,
the vineyards that are in bloom, that we might
Iurrow through the Iields & cause mischieI
to become undisguised and naked
in the perIumes that we have poured out like wine.
We will become drunk on these
Iar-Ilung Ilower Iragrances
that Iall on Ireckled shoulders.
The sun brightly shining, I will smear
my cigarette-snout up against
the Irosted window oI my room.
In the morning you will slip out Irom
under the covers, into the sun.
6
Song for Spider Love
It's delicate, like sunlight spun
into the dewy, morning grass.
7
Song for Sparrow Love
Had a dream I was a bird, I
sang out my sparrow song 'bout
the springtime & our love, I
stretched out my bone-stripped
tongue to trill&touch the tips
oI your Iingers.
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Song for Lepidoptera Love
I.
small, Iragile, hankerous & hungry
Ior love. Ravenous, even, Ior
whatever i can get my mouth on.
hands groping out in all directions
Ior every leaI & twig that
the wild, wild world oIIers to me.
II.
i am,
in many ways,
imperIect.
III.
I'm standing in the garden &
I'm thinking about Autumn.
I'm thinking oI the words,
'ground bursts into butterIlies
because, beneath my Ieet,
the ground has burst into butterIlies.
Poppies, daylilies, & black-eyed susans
bloomed up Irom the soil in our garden.
When I saw them, their colors, brilliant,
dazzling in the light, my hands shot out.
Each one with Iingers proboscises
searching that bed oI Ilowers to Iorm
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a bouquet Ior our coIIee table.
ButterIly Darling, I think oI your
lips near my ear & I shudder.
10
Song for Magpie Love
Babe, I'm headed out.
Got my magpie hat on.
Gonna come back with
marbles & earrings &
other shiny things: neon
lights & the whir 'n hum
oI the city-whistle rhythm
to decorate our nest.

11
Song for Whale Love
My lips, licked, baleen
bristles catching clicks
a complex song
I sing Ior you.
In the pitch-dark, swallowed
by a deaIening quiet, I,
New Englander, seek
your sea-deep heartbeat.
Sleepy Leviathan,
breach my bones!
I'll Iilter Ieed our love
lips, tongue, teeth passing
through my mouth, our bodies
lunging toward one another Ior
the largest bio-mechanical event
this earth has ever seen.
12
Song for Deer Love
Your hands, when you speak, my dear,
are all silent, brush-quick movements, like two deer.
Hunting my own Iood is something I've never done.
I'd love to, but I don't know that I could ever kill a deer.
I can hear your heart. The small pipe-organ oI your body
throbs quickly like the hooIbeats oI a deer.
Your touch is, on occasion, a soItly
rustle-whispering. You are doleIul, dear.
I sit & stare, doe-eyed with longing at your
petal-soIt skin. You are so very, very dear.
Sliding my hand down your bare-back, I am
reminded oI the splendor oI the spotted deer.
Mull over indecision in your cud-
stomach chew. Ruminate on us, dear.
13
Song for Woodpecker Love
Sapsuckers! Zygodactyls! Iridescent Lovers!
Your big-billed beating against the trunks oI trees
Ior a dinner oI bugs&grubs that you could share
in your tree-hollow nest together
was like a rhythm we could dance to.
14
Song for Robin Love
Snowmelt means remains, in
Spring, oI leaI-encrusted Autumn.
Bud-studded branches mean
the red-breasted Robin & you,
with your bottom-jaw jut
& big teeth,
returning to peck at the ground &
at the asymptote not Ialling
together my neck approaches,
liminal, the space where
nape oI neck meets mouth meandering
the slope. Dissolving up toward
jawbone. Lips touch & melt, teeth
trigger tongue into action Ileshy
parabola disturbed, no longer lying
Iallow. We Ily in Ilock by night.
15
Song for Crow Love
We skip stones on a lake.
A crow Ilies overhead.
You say, 'Corvidae &,
sweeping the hair out
oI your Iace, point.
At that very moment
a poem exists
in your mouth,
on your tongue,
ground up between
your very teeth,
inky black
& delicious.
16
Song for Cricket Love
I've got a wrinkled shirt collar, Ilat against my neck,
& Girl, you've got those Ilag-Ilutter eyelids.
Supine in the springtime, lie with me & listen
to cricket-quiet nights in grass.
II you let it, the sound oI their chirp-chirping
will sing you gently to sleep.
They will take the blankets oI the Iield
& tuck us in beIore the dawn.
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Connor Grogan is a student at Hampshire College majoring in
poetry. He can be contacted at connor.grogangmail.com
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