By Frederick Livingston, November 2023
shaky and pale as the thick sky
after her first drive in 25 years
winding elevation up Mt. Hebo
Carolyn emerges from passenger
van to gasp rarified air
today ten women from Coffee Creek
Correctional Facility planted thirty-five hundred
Viola adunca plugs among other native
nectars in one wet morning fast
as Forest Service could fetch trays
squelch of saturated clay
in spent summer meadow
prying trowels jim-gems
and dibblers few words pass
over power-auger roar
once abundant from coastal
California to Washington
Hebo supports the only remaining
self-sustaining population
of Oregon Silverspot Butterflies
other state sites require
ongoing larval augmentation
reared by Oregon Zoo fed
violet leaves the Coffee Creek
crew grows in pots and beds
but butterflies need habitats
to return to and every human
needs freedom to meet clouds
as equals to savor the final salal
and huckleberries of fall
undulating from peak to sea
our view is a clear quilt
of clearcut, regrowth, habitat
fragmented, climate unspooled
from its steady thread
all knotted roots and leaf riot
each green seedling
an apology does not
wash our wounds like time
but does turn the earth
IAE’s conservation in prisons
program is one such seed
this is a highlight of
my incarcerated life, Carolyn
said, her gloves slick with mud
