Spy Poetry: In Green Ink by Meredith Davies-Hadaway

Editor’s Note: This lovely poem by Chestertown poet Davies-Hadaway is offered as an antidote to the previous weeks’ darker poems about our impact on nature. This one speaks to resilience and hope as we celebrate the survival of a mother osprey and her chick—a precious environmental success story.   

In Green Ink

Neruda wrote in green ink, to his mind the colour of life and hope. —The Telegraph

It’s 9:20 a.m. and Rachel Carson Osprey is
feeding her chick. We call her Rachel because
these birds were rare before the ban on DDT.

Now they patrol the river every spring, reclaiming
nests on poles and pilings, on platforms we have
placed for them. Like this one beside my neighbor’s dock.

Rachel hatched three chicks but two are
gone, snatched by owls or eagles or maybe starved
by the stronger sibling.

We read that more than half of osprey chicks do not
survive their first year—and that’s with two parents.
Rachel’s mate has disappeared—

lost, we think, defending the nest. There was commotion
and a strange gathering of buzzards. Then all was quiet,
only Rachel remaining, with her single chick.

She’s still there, this morning, when I raise my
bedroom shade, though she’s grown thinner.
She has to feed her chick and then herself.

Fishing’s harder when there is no mate to
guard the nest. A month to go before the chick
can learn to fly and fish.

An early breeze has brought relief from yesterday’s
humidity. Rachel perches on a pole beside
her nest and stretches wings behind her, turning

slowly, like a weather vane. She chirps to let
the chick know she’s close by, though her back is turned.
The chick, a tiny silhouette atop the nest, has also

turned to face the wind, small wings spread behind,
chirping, too, in perfect imitation of the larger bird.
Here, says one. Here, says the other.

The nest, a tangle of debris cemented by saliva—sticks
and bark from several seasons, straw from nearby farms,
some packing string from stacks of cardboard waiting

for recycling—everything now flutters in the morning air.
From one side I see two lengths of ribbon waving wildly.
I pick up my binoculars to take a closer look.

It’s green, the ribbon—brilliant green. In a private
celebration, it spirals through the sky.

An award-winning poet and teacher of ecopoetry, Meredith Davies Hadaway is the author of five collections of poetry, [Among the Many Disappearing Things], Small Craft Warning (a collaboration with artist Marcy Dunn Ramsey), At The Narrows, The River is a Reason and Fishing Secrets of the Dead. Hadaway’s work explores the birds, bugs, trees, marshes—and especially the waters—of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, evoking memory and mystery as they shape our braided lives. Hadaway has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council and multiple Pushcart nominations. Her collection,  At The Narrows, won the 2015 Delmarva Book Prize for Creative Writing. In addition to publishing poetry and reviews in numerous literary journals, she served for ten years as poetry editor for The Summerset Review.  Hadaway holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is currently the Sophie Kerr Poet-in-Residence at Washington College, where she teaches literature and creative writing. Her poem, “In Green Ink,” is from [Among the Many Disappearing Things] (Grayson Books, 2024) and posted here with permission of the author.