FOUNDING DONORS

 

Grapevines cover the old fence stump.

Where there’s water, there may be mink.

If there is no pond, beavers will create one.

 

We greatly appreciate our partners

but few ecosystems are this simple:

 

Cacti are succulent.

Hoofrim is hard.

This evergreen is red.

 

When spring comes

the alpha male is the chorus leader.

When the weather gets foul

the alpha female will snap and snarl.

 

Study of ancient DNA reveals

that over many millennia

large hearts sustain.

 

The pack is the nucleus.

A pack can be as few as two.

---

Source & Method

All lines are from informational placards in the Hall of Dinosaurs at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, and the Hall of North American Mammals at New York’s Museum of Natural History.

---

Nick Fuller Googins‘ fiction has been read on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and has appeared in The Southern Review, Ecotone, Narrative, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. In his non-writing time he installs solar panels, tutors, and plays trombone in an activist street band.

---

Photo by Samuel Zeller