Treatment of Uncertainty

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Cascade Field Guide, 2023

You called it

hunting.

Hunting, the children

said, tucking vials in their

pockets to fill

with snails. Together

we tore quiet

bodies from the base

of trees, watched

as they curled back

from air. Oreohelix

you told them.

Oreohelix said our children,

and dumped them on the table

where they dried forgotten.

Occasionally one escaped, and I

found it by following—I’m sorry

I couldn’t stay,

sorry I stayed

so long, the way

a forgotten body

dries to almost

nothing, the way

escape can leave

an obvious path.

The title of this poem, “Treatment of Uncertainty,” comes from “Oreohelix strigosa cooperi (Cooper’s Rocky Mountain Snail): A Technical Conservation Assessment,” prepared for the USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Region, Species Conservation Project, by Tamara Anderson, PhD.