by Janet Ruth
after Mary Oishi’s poem “I Need Poems”
These days I need the sun,
because it gives us light,
whether blazing, or watery,
or obscured by clouds,
and the words to share it with you.
These days I need the moon,
because it’s a reflection of light,
whether new & invisible, or waxing,
or waning, or full,
and the words to share it with you.
These days I need all the flowers,
because they each provide food
for some creature and our hearts,
whether tiny prickly flowers of tumbleweed
or galaxies of sunflowers,
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all the world’s creatures
because if they disappear none of us will ever
be the same, whether the tiger that padded past
our jeep in India without a glance, or the black widow
spider spinning a web by our back door,
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all the recipes I can collect
because they feed us, whether my ancestors’
pfeffernuessen and kringel, sauerkraut and pickled eggs
or my adopted state’s tamales, posole and biscochitos,
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all the stories of standing up to say NO!
because they show us the way
and the price we must be willing to pay,
whether Dad’s stories of being
a conscientious objector in WWII
or people today carrying signs that say “No Kings,”
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all of your hearts,
whether bruised and broken,
or fibrillating, or full of joy,
to hold them up to the light with words,
because they are
the heartBEAT heartBEAT
of the real America.
because it gives us light,
whether blazing, or watery,
or obscured by clouds,
and the words to share it with you.
These days I need the moon,
because it’s a reflection of light,
whether new & invisible, or waxing,
or waning, or full,
and the words to share it with you.
These days I need all the flowers,
because they each provide food
for some creature and our hearts,
whether tiny prickly flowers of tumbleweed
or galaxies of sunflowers,
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all the world’s creatures
because if they disappear none of us will ever
be the same, whether the tiger that padded past
our jeep in India without a glance, or the black widow
spider spinning a web by our back door,
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all the recipes I can collect
because they feed us, whether my ancestors’
pfeffernuessen and kringel, sauerkraut and pickled eggs
or my adopted state’s tamales, posole and biscochitos,
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all the stories of standing up to say NO!
because they show us the way
and the price we must be willing to pay,
whether Dad’s stories of being
a conscientious objector in WWII
or people today carrying signs that say “No Kings,”
and the words to share them with you.
These days I need all of your hearts,
whether bruised and broken,
or fibrillating, or full of joy,
to hold them up to the light with words,
because they are
the heartBEAT heartBEAT
of the real America.
Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist and poet. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. She has recent poems in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Ekphrastic Review, The Lyric and anthologies including The Nature of Our Times (Paloma
Press, 2025). Her sonnet “A World That Shimmers” won the inaugural
True Concord Poetry Contest, was set to music and performed by True
Concord Voices and Orchestra in Tucson, October 2023. Her book,Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018) was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards.
