This week’s poem, Deborah Cummins’ “Encounter,” draws us into a nuanced story of power and fragility in the natural world. I love the vivid forward momentum of this poem’s storytelling, its exquisite natural detail, and how deftly Cummins bookends the poem with its first and final lines.

Cummins is the author of three poetry collections, most recently “Until They Catch Fire,” and a collection of essays. Her work has appeared in seven anthologies and numerous literary journals and magazines. A former board chair of the Poetry Foundation, she currently serves as board president of Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. She and her husband reside in Portland and Deer Isle.

Encounter
By Deborah Cummins

So you think yourself powerful
when you walk to pier’s end
and your mere shadow drives minnows
by the hundreds out of the shallows.
On the deck, you turn a page of your book,
and the hummingbird deep in the fuchsia’s neck
blurs, whirring off.
At dawn, your strolling the same lane
as the doe is enough
to startle her retreat into the thick, dark spruce.
These could have been my thoughts
but were not, as I swung in the hammock,
tired or lazy on an August afternoon.
Perhaps I resembled a slumbering beast
to the swallowtail that flitted above
and alighted, to my astonishment,
on my bare forearm, rested there
in her wild unremembering.
With one swack, I could’ve ended her
or sent her away. Just lifting my head
would’ve done the trick.
But I didn’t blink, draw a deep breath
as she fanned her wings, probed
my skin as delicately as an eyelash
brushes a cheek. Again,
the surprise was mine
when – nothing more – she rose, disappeared
into the trees, and stirred in me a yearning
against which I was powerless.

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Encounter” copyright 2006 by Deborah Cummins. Reprinted from Counting the Waves (WordPress) by permission of the author.