by Kaitlyn Spees
“Starting in late fall each year, migrating newts have to cross a public road that divides their forested hillside
habitat from their spawning ground in a nearby [lake] … Now about 80 volunteers strong, the grassroots group
[Chileno Valley Newt Brigade] has for six years rescued more than 22,300 Pacific newts…”
—NPR
(With apologies to the King James Bible)
The Brigade’s my shepherd; I shan’t be squashed.
They arrest me in the beams of their flashlights; they ferry me across the asphalt.
They commission habitat studies; they dream of building tunnels underneath the road for me.
Yea, though cars may claim my tail or leg, a Brigade volunteer still scoops what remains of me off the pavement, comforted by my regenerative power.
The volunteer deposits me back where I was born; its waters embrace me; my spawn drop lakewards.
Why do these strange diurnal creatures follow me every migration of my life? They still believe in those grand old virtues of mercy and kindness, through selfless acts made new(t).