I Love You, Rachel Carson

Kevin Graham

Before the flareback of what was still to come

nothing existed alone. Without fuss

earth’s green mantle turns up springtails

in the needle of a spruce tree.

I see you at a desk or out in the field studying

clover, the flaming cups of wood lily.

Interconnectedness draws your attention

the way burrs cling to calves on a brisk

country walk. White-throated sparrows

haven’t yet succumbed to waves of DDT;

meadow larks and grackles stitch the air.

Shadowy brooks harbour schools of mojarras

and snook. Proof of toxins’ effects—

mania, delusion—hasn’t bloomed

in the mind of man. Articulate as an aphid,

you know that soil runs the gamut

from bacteria to mammals and that willow

blossom opening is only natural.

Scientific men waiting to call you hysterical

are footnotes; you’re in technicolour

like the Blackburnian, winged with fame.

The cancer hasn’t spread. Certain words

endure like a well-thumbed tome

of Romantic poetry—honeydew; aeons.

Every now and then the pinched harmonic

of the future wrings time’s hands

and you turn to the browse line deer make

before aeroplane-loads of lethal spray.

Givens include larvae and black-eyed Susans.

The cruel irony of radiation doesn’t lead

to anaemia, your liver and heart running

perfectly well among wild bees and hedgerows,

myrtle warblers and goldenrod.

Your ashes never reach the coast

of Squirrel Island because you’re alive

in the particles we breathe, vibrant as sky.

KEVIN GRAHAM is from Dublin, Ireland. In 2025 he won The London Magazine Poetry Prize. His third collection with Gallery Press, Daylight Mystery, was published in September 2026.