The poem explores the notion of how everything is connected through a food chain. A woman eats bird's nest soup, a delicacy in China, and contemplates how everything is connected as the swifters rise into view.
The soup, she admits, is flavorless. She marvels that even the spit of the swifters, which the birds use to construct their nests, is a "jewel."
Another instructive nature poem, "Whale Fall Deadsong Heavenly Blues #17," by Christopher Todd Anderson compares a whale carcass to a cathedral.
...Boneworms
humble themselves in the chapel of her heart,
humble themselves in the chapel of her heart,
decapods haunt her lungs’ cloisters.
Later, its clear that the carcass is not a church but a universe. However, both are impressive and big so really a church and a universe are interchangeable:
...Creatures
born here, in the interstices of bone and blubber,
think this is the whole universe: cell-rot sky
and jaw-cave homeland, a history founded on decay
See the Summer issue of Whale Road Review,
