Mary Oliver's Parking Lot
(RIP 1935-2019)
Jill Sell
if there is a God
I hope He/She does not let
Mary Oliver look down
and see what has become
of the beloved Ohio woodland
in Maple Heights
where she thrived
where she
tramped among huge tulip trees
skipped among trilliums,
mayapples, jack-in-the-pulpits
and skunk cabbage with giant leaves
and an odor fitting its name
where she
wetted her feet in vernal ponds
rich with American bullfrogs
waded in cold streams finding
northern red salamanders
with tiny black spots
where she
played hide and seek with striped chipmunks
and was quiet when
white-tailed does passed
I have been to her woods
as a child, teen, adult
as an old lady
in spring, summer, fall and winter
and I know why spring especially
turned her fingers to roots
writing their stories on her paper
yes, some of the woods
was saved for parkland
but even there
paved rollerblade paths replace deer trails
styrofoam coffee cups on the ground
block buttercups
and you can’t hear the calls of
a downy woodpecker—
drowned by the constant drone
of vehicles shortcutting to highways
dear God, don’t let Mary look down
Author Bio
Jill Sell is a freelance journalist, essayist and poet, specializing in nature and environmental writing. Sell is co-founder of Three Women In the Woods: Words and Images, a collaboration between a poet, nature photographer and fine artist. Her poems have been read, published and displayed at Allwood Audubon Center and Farm, Holden Arboretum, Riverside Gardens/Mill Creek Metro Parks, John S. Seiberling Gallery/Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and many other nature centers, botanical gardens and parks. Wildflower magazine (published by The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center) and The Trumpeter (an environmental humanities journal) are among her favorite publications that have published her writing. Sell lives in Sagamore Hills with her herb garden, trilliums and jack-in-the pulpits and a wonderful weedy lawn that will never be treated by chemicals.
