Hi.  My name is Cecily Parks.  I'm going to read the poem "Hurricane Song".  The poem is about a speaker who loves the natural world and is questioning whether that world loves her back.  

Hurricane Song

The pines dizzying for a hurricane, the wind
so hotly twirls their skirts and underskirts,
unnerves their pinecones, ratchets up and up
their branches into needle-spangled, needle-spraying
plumes.  The white-running sunlight falls and tumbles
through the meadow, rattling the grass.  The meadow
sweeps me up in its arms so that I lose track of east
and feel that little kidnapped thrill that comes with drastic
weather.  O almost-wilderness, will the hurricane
hunt this far inland for our green juice?  I guess 
yes.  The meadow guesses wet where it laps up
against the soft remnants of wall.  The clouds guess wind
behind the swervy treetops.  Blue jays vanish in the orchard's
green.  A deer flips herself over and over, white tail-spark,
black hoof-sparks, brown wheel.  The clouds 
guess again: shadows blooming and wilting in the grass,
latticed branch-shadow mottling the road.  The sound
of kisses increases through the forest, switchy sticks.
The forest has loved itself long enough to do this.  
Is now when I should love myself into a safer place,
or is this the place where love makes me safe?  I guess yes
and yes.  Spastic gods, the grasshoppers manifest 
on the margins of errant leaves and spring into bright
nothing.  Where do they come from, where do they go?
The wild strawberries guess wind.  The wind guesses wind.
The grass guesses grass, tossing all of us.