So We Don’t Forget
Editor’s Note: Mary Katherine Creel has published in these pages before, and I have been enjoying her Substack, a small spectacle. She writes about the exquisite beauty of nature, and occasionally about the sadness for the damage we have caused it. Read more here about the American eel, its life cycle, and its long decline at the hands of humans. – Liz Thompson
So We Don’t Forget
Now, when I water the garden or fill a drinking glass,
I think about eels—slick & supple,
slender finned bodies, olive green & tannic as
the riverbeds they mourn. I think of eels moonlit & silver,
glass & dark elver, yellow hunters feeding forest floor,
laying down fat before migrating back to the sea
where they will spawn & die. I think of mussels, too,
the unseen cleaners that need eels & other fish to survive,
larvae hitching rides in gill slits. I think of dams breaking
the body of a river, wild kin & connections already gone
& forgotten—entire galaxies of glinting ribbons
with tiny ruby hearts.
Ghost eel. © Mary Katherine Creel, original watercolor
Mary Katherine Creel lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she has worked as a journalist and counselor to children and families. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of several poetry collections, including Every Note, a Lantern, and her most recent book, No One Ever Says. She also writes the Substack publication a small spectacle, featuring nature-inspired poems and short essays about finding gratitude, healing, and connection.