Salamander, Slate Gray

Jon Cannon Click to read more...

I teach environmental law at the University of Virginia School of Law and live in the country, near trails. Publications include Environment in the Balance (Harvard 2015); “April in Keystone Heights, FL,” About Place Journal (Vol. 4, Issue III May 2017); and "Pope Francis, Laudato Si', and U.S. Environmentalism," William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review.

Motionless in rotting shags
buried until an instant ago
in darkness under the sodden log
I rolled aside like the stone
from Jesus’s tomb. You are alive,
of course — you were always alive,
breathing lungless, sorting the world
through precocious eyes.
Our great mother
who walked on land would be smiling,
if fish could smile, having secured
for both of us domains, though yours
so much the less secure for mine.
I’m not here to save you,
nor you me. But if I pray to her
all along the bone line
will you hear?

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