On Under the Canopy by Megan Kaminski
By Huascar Medina
Hello friends, I’m Huascar Medina, Former Poet Laureate of Kansas, here for Poets on the Plains. I hope you are well and finding joy. I’m excited to share some wonderful poetry from Kansas poets. Today, I will be sharing the poem “Under Tree Canopy” by Megan Kaminski.
Megan Kaminski is Poet and Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Kansas, where her work sits at the intersection of ecological attention, place-based practice, and community care. She is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Gentlewomen (Noemi Press, 2020), and her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere.
Her forthcoming books include Blazing Star(Noemi Press), a poetry collection exploring the healing possibilities of plants and the prairie, and Prairie Oracle (University Press of Kansas), an illustrated essay collection and divination deck rooted in tallgrass prairie ecologies. She is also at work on Prairie Alchemy, a lyric memoir in essays about attention, place, and the more-than-human world.
The poem I will be reading is “Under Tree Canopy," from Megan Kaminski’s forthcoming collection Blazing Star(Noemi Press). "Under Tree Canopy" is a poem about what the natural world teaches us when we slow down enough to pay attention. Set in the backyard ecosystems of Kansas, it finds in bumblebees, peonies, and young robins a quiet instruction in how to keep going — and how to open to others in the process.
Here is the poem, “Under Tree Canopy” by Megan Kaminski.
Under tree canopy by oakleaf hydrangea sipping creekside, watching fat bumblebees drunk and stumbling. In shade in shelter our winter-slow bodies quicken to heat no longer afraid to take up space or yield to powdery blossom. Peonies, dogwood, and shining blue star, gentle teachers of sweetness of stopping to breathe and soft touch. Maybe it’s true that we are all alone together. Able to imagine a variety of sadnesses other than our own and, in that seeing, our chance to open to face the sun. Young robins chatter incessant and willow leaves curl waxy green in fingers providing company and counsel: How to fall over again and again and keep going. How easy to linger in the wayside, sit by water and allow each verdant brush to transform seed into wily seedling, bud to pink flower. How to realize each expectant whisper in our own heart.
“Under tree canopy.” Plant-Human Quarterly, 2 (2021).
When I read the title: “Under Tree Canopy” I envisioned a large expanse of cover. Shade as a form of protection and refuge. The long meandering arms of a tree reaching out to provide care. Care that we can choose to sit beneath or walk away from as we deem necessary. We have a great deal of agency in nature, the ability to wander, think and feel, freely.
Nature in Kaminski’s poems are not regulated to a backdrop. The Kansas landscape is thriving with life. The observer views bumblebees, flowers, leaves and young birds as a guide or an instructor. Nature leads the way, full of wisdom and salvation, offering us a temporary sanctuary from the busying world we sometimes try to escape from when we actively choose to enter, participate and converse with nature.
The line, “Maybe it’s true that we/ are all alone together” feels like a gentle truth. Acknowledging that we are all, and by all, I mean all living things, not just us lonely humans are simultaneously experiencing the same miracle of life, in our own way, from our own viewpoints. There is so much to learn in this poem from nature. “The sweet of stopping/ to breathe and soft touch”, is rest. “How to fall over…and keep going”, is persistence. Empathy is the capacity to “imagine a variety of sadnesses other than our own”. Hope is a daily ritual, a choice “...to open to face the sun”. And to consider at the very least to begin trying to listen to the “whisper in our own heart.”
Thank you for listening. This is Poets on the Plains. I’m Huascar Medina, living artfully in Topeka, Kansas. I hope you are doing the same.
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Huascar Medina, a poet, editor, essayist, and artist advocate. He served as the poet laureate of Kansas from 2019 to 2022 and was named an Academy of American Huascar Medina Poets Laureate Fellow in 2022. Medina is currently a senior editor at South Broadway Press and a contributing op-ed writer at the Kansas Reflector. Medina is the author of How to Hang the Moon (Spartan Press), Un Mango Grows in Kansas (Spartan Press), Protest as Love Poem (Meadowlark Press), and the forthcoming Prairie Fool (Plainspoken Books, 2027), a collection of lyrical essays addressing politics, class, and culture. His work has been published in the Flint Hills Review, Gasconade Review, Green Mountains Review, Kansas Magazine, Latino Book Review, and The New York Times, among other places.https://huascarmedina.com/
FEATURED POET
Megan Kaminski, the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, she is a beloved writing workshop facilitator and writing coach. She loves life-giving collaborations: she offers YourRightLivelihood.com with Kathryn Lorenzen, Bravevoice.com with Kelley Hunt, and TheArtofFacilitation.net with Joy Roulier Sawyer. She offers weekly “Write Where You Are: A Writer’s Companion” through her Patreon page and her blog, “Everyday Magic” at CarynMirriamGoldberg.com. Find more athttps://www.megankaminski.com/home
