A DIGITAL CHAPBOOK
Selected poems from Biophilic, originally published October 2021. Print copies available from Lulu Press
Poems and photographs by Kristen Lippert
Cover image credit: Timothy Ong
POEMS
Sincerely, Soil
Sovereign sun shining through
Thick, thistly forest floors
Fostering underbrush underneath
Undulating landscapes lapping like
Lazy black-eyed susans
Satiating stems, stamens with
Water, wonderfully wild roots
Resting rhythmically, rightfully here
Holding heaven hostage, dormant
Daisies dancing between
Beautiful, barren ecosystems
Establishing energetic bounty
Becoming boundless, real—
Richly rivaled inheritances
Innately idolizing dominance
Canvas
City corners hooking eyes
Last century's paint-peeling lies
Brick and mortar dust, stealing
Preachers still defending, feeling
Riptide rust enduring ruins
Old stone churches housing shoo-ins
Cement and poles protruding gayly
Coffee shops producing daily
Fights and fantasies sinking, silent
Gravel-crunching sidewalks, violent—
Is this the way we choose to create
Letting blood and rain decide our fate?
Wild Blues
Mindful Embrace
That urban explorer's urge
To remember what came before us
Then to retell and shape those stories
Crept up on me this week as naturally,
Decisively as a wild grapevine
Grows and swallows the chain link fence
Encompassing our community baseball field
That barely once became a garden
I saw her future before—
Our proud city disintegrating
Erecting disciplines between us
Disciples of academia
Proudly educating the ones who can pay
While our kids eat Cheetos and candy bars
This field erodes here under sun-seared grass
Under raised beds sprouting collard greens
Under MLK promises of a new day
Leaving open spaces to tend, whispering weeds
Neglected now, behind signs of pandemic limitations, locked—
What is a field or a garden without faithful friends?
What is this land that silently waits While we curiously ponder our place Arguing values and preaching justice
Just doing nothing as
Cardboard boxes boast scant nutrition
Benefits and cancer rates skyrocket—
Did our hands forget
From where our form took shape?
When will this Gate open
And let in anyone who is hungry?
Whoever is thirsty can see the similarity
Between cheap thrills, chronic ills, and TV-screen-cultivated tastes—
When will we wean our babes
Off convenience-store snacks
Scale the walls of science, fear and false facts
To make a rejuvenating space real?
Our lonely dust diamond still aches for stumbling feet
Patiently pitching pure dirt’s potential
Needing only new, old, rich and poor players,
Planters, teachers, neighbors, healers,
Students and fumbling prophets to promise
With this rich, God-created earth,
Seed, water and wind
I Thee wildly wed
Mindful Embrace
Mindful Embrace
Mindful Embrace
Remember when
Life was simple?
When love was an imaginary rose
Waiting to blindly bloom?
And we were selfish
Saturated with thoughts
Of being alone
Because we knew if this is all there is...
Selah
Sit and watch the birds
And know this romance:
To play with light and
Breathe the wind and
Feel the shadows find our scars
Uproot the crumbling earth
Around the ancient stories
Of wives and shattered fairy tales
Forget the simple things and
Remember the falling rocks and stars
Witness
Mindful Embrace
Witness
If a flower could see us
What would she say?
Would she ask how we're really doing
Or just tell us to have a nice day?
Would she thank us for the water
Or remind us she needed more?
Would she grow a little taller
For the chance to be closer
In quiet conversation?
Would she call her friends and laugh
At something we said to our phone
When we thought
Only Google and God were listening?
Would she focus on our faults
Or tell us to be patient
More discerning?
Or would she just remind us we are gentle
Wise and beautiful too
That someday we will fall and fade
How we both need a combination
Of minerals, energy, sun and shade?
Knowing
Mindful Embrace
Witness
I've seen more of the world than you
Though you may think you are well-traveled
We learn more by staying in one place
Really knowing it
Than by trotting around tourist traps
I've seen more of the world than you
Standing at bus stops
Listening to strangers tell their stories
Without a camera or a
Photo gallery to prove my proficiency
I've seen more of the world
Resting right here in my yard
Noticing dew drops and dandelions
Nothing else—
Just how nature phases the moon night to night
I've seen more of the world
In your lonely, expectant eyes
Because these feet know how to grow roots
And I want to plant you
In this abundant experience
Sensing Psi
Sunflower Secrets
Sunflower Secrets
Touch—
Sensory receptors receiving pressure
Producing pain and rightful pleasure
Taste—
Papillae tongues trapping essence
Encouraging disgust and sustenance
Sight—
Epithelial lenses letting in light
Eyes deceiving, laughing delight
Sound—
Canals and cochlea catching vibrations
Cells calculating rhythmic interpretations
Smell—
Nostril neurons noticing particles
Cilia sweeping sizeable molecules
This is all good, almost elementary
Yet I still wonder about telepathy—
Whose discovery will it be
That translates time and space to biology?
Sunflower Secrets
Sunflower Secrets
Sunflower Secrets
Follow that internal Rhythm
Even when
Your anxious atmosphere
Abounds with reasons to abandon
Hope—
Push up towards the sky
And soak in the rays of Wisdom
Seek photons of Truth
Instead of false philosophies
That mangle and choke your Roots—
Remember the flower
That blooms in October
Even though the calendar says
Summer is over
You are allowed to keep
Growing
Spinning
Sunflower Secrets
The gentle release
Of a single leaf
Comes as simply as
The sudden breeze
Twirling tip
Dancing stem
Floating death
Between both of them
This last dance
Takes all we know
And rests our minds
In autumn's glow
Spinning (Video postlude)
Fresh Snow
The Gray Days
Crackling sky
Sending down crystals
Conglomerating on everything
Calling beyond sacred and profane
Coalescing ordinary substance
Into this raw winter radiance
God, let's dance
Surrounded by grace, glistening
Gathering on sun-shattered sidewalks
Gazing up at these festive fractals
Forgetting our fantastical differences
In beautifully barren tree branches
The Gray Days
The Gray Days
Some choose to see
The reflection of light
This side of dust-swollen clouds
As spectacularly sad
Now, I am not denying
The existential threat
Of a sunless day—
Believe me, after a decade in
Dark valleys of Pittsburgh’s psyche—
Just proposing an alternate reality
In which sunlight exists more softly
Soothing the brain with a playfully
Subtle challenge instead—
To find more intentional
Sources of Joy
Even if we have to look
More closely to find color
Across Earth's canvas—
Beauty is here
Scattered and dilapidated
Between drops of nude and nonchalant mist
Cozily posing between each single-leaf branch
Bare because the wind found this burning bush
Just before winter
Our reds, greens, and blues grow brighter
The longer we look and linger—
So let's stop bemoaning this gray day
Start enduring, and enjoy it together
stories behind the poems
Starting with a photograph
Most of my poems begin with an image. Seeing a leaf stuck to my car mirror, vines scaling a neighborhood wall, or another scene that jumps out at me during a walk, run, or trip through the city. When I sit down to write, I let my imagination play with the colors, themes, and inspiration to see what will emerge. Some poems almost write themselves in one sitting, like "Two Foxes" or "Spinning," while others, I rework for days, taking longer to think about structure and more precise word choice. Since this is my first collection, I am especially less concerned about it being "perfect" and more focused on just enjoying the process of producing something new!
Cover Art
I met Timo when we were both attending a small group for international students in Pittsburgh. I told him I was planning to publish a poetry collection, and he immediately agreed to collaborate with an illustration. When I sent him the poem "Two Foxes" below, he designed the image that I eventually decided would become the cover for my chapbook. The variety of green and teal colors he chose and the centering of the natural landscape perfectly capture the observing eye and the meditative space that I hope my poetry will communicate and continue to help create.
Two Foxes
I was running the other day and
Stopped to stretch
Under a tree and
Spotted two young foxes
Playing on the hillside
Just chasing each other
In and out of holes
Nibbling on ears
Pouncing and waiting
For the next reaction
Knowing how not to hurt the other
Pennsylvania Parks
As a trauma survivor and urban professional facing burnout, walking in local park woods has provided a healing escape. Some of my poems reflect this relationship between mind and greenspace, tapping into a desire for more connection with the natural world, finding and then offering a sense of hope. Not every photo that inspired a poem passes my personal publishing criteria, so some poems are without images in the printed version, like this one.
October
Where deciduous meets evergreen
Is where my thoughts go to mingle
With shade and shadow,
Piercing ray and rustling, fallow
Glorious forest
Speckled, single leaves flying
Lilting across this wave of pleasure
Whispering wind
A warm liquid glow of evaporated particles
Promising tomorrow's abundant participation
Breathe in the earthy flavors
Exhale anxious ruminations
Sink your shoes in the soft mud
And go where the path takes you—
Delight in an afternoon's betrayal of
Centuries of severed instincts
Fun Facts
The photo for "Knowing" was actually the one that inspired "Prodigal Sun." I chose to pair it differently in both digital and print versions for pagination and space considerations.
I first read "Sensing Psi" live at an event hosted by Rae Taylor at Level Up Studios in Pittsburgh.
I am grateful to Alexander Camlin and The Space Upstairs for inviting me to workshop words together online during the pandemic.
My freshman year of college, a few dormmates gathered to watch the film Dead Poets Society. Inspired by the concept, we decided to regularly meet and read poems together on Saturday nights. A mix of students majoring in science, sociology, education, and English, we called ourselves the Poettes and enjoyed several semesters of poetry across our Grove City College campus and at the nearby Coffee Grove.
Sunflowers pictured here grow outside The Hollander Project by For Good PGH. The burning bushes grow by the east Penn Avenue entrance to Allegheny Cemetery.