“Coevolution” & “Systems of Navigation” by Liana Kapelke-Dale

Coevolution

I’ve never dreamed of wolves

only of the stars above their ears.

My dog sleeps next to me

still green from a roll in fresh-cut grass.

Thousands of years ago we chose

some wolves to breed

brought them along on our evolutionary journey

and left the rest behind

out beneath the stars.

How did we decide to tame

those silver-tongued wolves

who permeated the membranes of our porous dreams?

When we were running running running

quadrupeds again

seeing through their shining eyes

until dawn broke and the wolves slept

and we woke, hands and feet dirty with mud and grass.

Staccato memories of stars vibrated above our ears

and we had the strange feeling of having spent the night

boca arriba, face-up

all four limbs stretched out

reaching reaching reaching for the moon.

We saw through their eyes

bright like mercury

and said, we can make them better.

Systems of Navigation

I.

There are no more explorers,

not really.

They died out long ago, once

they’d mapped every inch

of the earth’s surface.

What is there left to explore,

or even to see,

after we have forced the others

to show us everything that was theirs –

and then we took it?

II.

The first real explorers are not remembered

by name but only by the stars they became

when they died.

Their light became our light

when we were still young enough

to be given gifts for no reason as though

there was still time for us to grow up to become

something good, as though

the cosmos gifted us things because

we were children and there was no reason not to.

The gods must have been crazy.

But then, who could have predicted what we would become?

Those first explorers trusted the stars,

the constellations,

to lead them where they were meant to go

and the beautiful thing of it all

is that they did.

Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.

Now we put our faith in GPS

to lead us – not where we are meant to go,

but where we have already decided to.

The question is no longer,

Shall we pilgrimage by land or sea

but rather, What is the fastest route

to my destination. Avoid tolls and traffic.

III.

To understand, we have only to look

up at the stars

and down at the earth.

To understand, we can remember the Incas

Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo,

who followed a golden staff to where

they were meant to be –

a city they named Cusco:

Navel of the World.

To understand, imagine shining streets

radiating out from your own navel.

Imagine yourself streaming

through those streets at night

looking up at the black

that holds the stars in place:

you are lost,

you are golden,

you are free.

Liana Kapelke-Dale is a poet and ATA Certified Translator (Spanish to English). She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She is the author of Seeking the Pink (Kelsay Books), a full-length book of poetry; Little words seeking/Mute human for mutual/Gain and maybe more (Irrelevant Press), a chapbook of personal ads written in haiku form; and Specimens, her first (self-published) chapbook. Her poetry has been featured in myriad journals, most recently in Cerasus Magazine and Full House Literary Magazine, and she has work forthcoming in Shorelines of Infinity. Liana lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her lovely pointer-hound mix, Poet.