Poetry: Selections from Samantha Terrell

Teetering On Extinction

“There have been five particularly severe mass extinctions over the past 500 million years.” 

-Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

 

From one mass extinction 

every hundred million 

years, what have we learned? 

That every species has its unique vulnerabilities, 

but vulnerabilities nonetheless.

So, dinosaurs and humans 

may have more in common 

than we thought. 

But if we're due for an extinction event, this

may be the first a species brings upon itself.

 

When we last spoke, electric energy 

came over me, 

the way the Irish say sadness "comes on" – 

Tá brón orm – 

slipping oppressively upon 

the shoulders of its victim,

or something like that. 

But this wasn't sadness. 

This was something the Irish, or the 

​Welsh, or the Inuits 

might have a name for, but we unsophisticated 

​English speakers of the world, don't. 

 

It's somewhere between nervous and elated.

​It's something like 

both fear and excitement

mixed with the Holy Spirit 

and the Devil himself. It's the acknowledgment 

that, right now, you like me, but if 

you get to know me too well (and by the way, 

​you're on the brink of it), 

you won't. 

When you cease to like me and my kind, I'll know. 

I'll see the camera flash of disappointment in your irises,

the very moment you figure it out –  that we're so alike,

 

up to a point, anyway,

but, unequivocally, 

no further. How dare I break 

your budding trust, with my egoistic

autonomy, my silly 

self-hood that dissents so easily 

from yours. You’ll wish 

you could wash 

off the parts of me that disagree with you; 

​snuff them out, and, right then, 

the sentiment of mass extinction, begins. ​

 

Tá brón orm

 

 

Chasing Cast-Offs

 

I left reckless abandon clinging to a cliff face,

the only piece of spaghetti that had stuck. 

 

But I discarded it to be discovered 

by its true owner –  someone who surely had more 

​rights to passion than myself. 

 

It surprised me when it signaled its 

​discontent with my abandonment

by slipping down the side of its fated wanton way, 

 

as if to chase me.

Safe Landings

 

When the great eternal gavel drops,

let it be known

I found the sunset

stunning from the start,

and always trusted 

in the purity of your heart.

 

Before its head is turned and laid to rest,

tell the Judge of your anger,

your cloud full of tears,

life’s bliss, your heart's motivation,

death's wretched fears,

and even depression.

And when it falls 

with its mighty thud, 

we'll stand together, accepting and accepted 

in those grand immortal halls.

Upright

 

I’ve been looking for the resolve I had when 

it was me against the world; when I had been 

pushed down enough to learn 

how to get up again. 

But then, I was 

​​pushed 

​​​down 

​​​​one too many times.

 

The damp earth started to feel like home – a 

place worth staying, because 

finding the energy required to lift 

oneself up to what would presumably be

an unworthy position, 

seemed nonsensical.

 

Sitting up – the scent of grass, even 

a slightly-too-cool breeze

became sufficient. If, to sit upright

in a moderately comfortable place was

the best I could do, I would do it

to the best of my ability. 

 

And, life was okay – 

until it was more. 

 

My legs suddenly straight, the breeze warm, 

I think I can stand without falling. But, 

more importantly, without making the 

world my adversary.

 

Samantha Terrell is a Pushcart-nominated poet and the author of multiple collections, most recently Dismantling Mountains (Vellum Publishing UK, 2023). Her poems have been widely anthologized in publications such as Dark Winter Lit, Green Ink Poetry, In Parentheses, Misfit Magazine, Red Weather, and others. Terrell writes from Upstate New York.