Turtle Trails¹

Editorial Introduction. — This section is devoted to poetry involving turtles, representing either reprinted previously published or new unpublished material. We encourage our readers to submit poetry or songs for consideration, either their own material or work by other authors. Poems may be submitted to Anders G.J. Rhodin, Chelonian Research Foundation, E-mail: RhodinCRF@aol.com.

Our desire is to share with our readers the beauty and wonder of turtles as expressed through the art of the poem or song. In the sense that the relationship between man and turtles is multifaceted, so too is turtle poetry. The poems we publish here will reflect that complexity, from poems of pure admiration for the creatures themselves to others reflecting the utilization of turtles and their products. Some poems will reflect man's use of the turtle for sustenance, others will stress man's need to preserve and protect turtles. Some will deal with our emotional interactions with turtles, others will treat turtles light-heartedly or with seeming disrespect, but all will hopefully help us to better understand both the human and the chelonian condition, and remind us that the turtle holds a sacred place in all our hearts.

And what of the turtle

who finds her trail blocked

by the new asphalt road,

hot as just poured pitch,

and she with places to go…

and what's left of the turtle

who dares the hot tar

but can't beat tires, that singing

skid year-rings off her plastron,

crack her carapace into splinters

to bleach in the sun, and egg shells

like bits of plastic, shard-sharp

in dry air…

and what of tomorrow, of next year,

when turtles no longer come this way,

their span reduced to the width of a road;

generations of turtles

smacked to the side of a road that replaced

dirt trails, that dried up wetlands,

pulled taut the hills into flatland,

ripped reed and sedge from the runnels

of waterways, that took the land

from the turtle as surely as from the Indian,

taking her eggs, and her poems.

Editorial Comment. — CB ('Lyn) Follett is an accomplished American poet who won the 2001 National Poetry Book Award and now lives in California. She cares deeply about turtles. When I wrote her to ask for permission to reprint this wonderful poem, she answered as follows: “I would be delighted to have Turtle Trails published in your journal. I do love turtles and I worry so about them and their range. Turtle Trails is a poem I often read when I am presenting my work. I feel as if it represents my work and my concerns for the web of life. Turtles, such an old and venerable species are honored in the myths and beliefs of so many cultures. I think of the Native Americans, the Chinese. I visited Lonesome George the last of his species, living now in captivity in the Galapagos, where they keep hoping he will sire a continuation of his line. And it will be a loss to all of us if he doesn't. When I was a child, I used to wander the marshes and ponds in our town looking for turtles. We'd have some sort of communion while I examined the beauty of their shells, the economy of their beings, the bright alertness of their eyes. I thought them curiously beautiful then, and still do.” For me, this poem conjures forth images of the changing face of our modern landscape—of rampant human development causing relentless loss of our habitats, wilderness, and ecosystems, as well as gradually destroying our heritage of both cultural and biological diversity. Turtles being crushed on the asphalt road also in a way represent our habitats and biodiversity and natural world being crushed on the road of destructive development. We must find a way to balance that development with sound science and an ethic of conservation, lest we all lose our heritage—our natural world and this planet we all inhabit.