April 2, 2024
English professor Anne Goldman has published two essays. The first essay, "Air Traffic" can be read in Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, volume 25.2. Her second essay "Aria for Insects" was published in the Georgia Review (Spring 2024).
After the Kincade fire, flocks of waxwings descended upon the firethorn shrub outside my California cabin. Smoke and heat thwarted the birds till mid-November. Now they had arrived, and the berries were abundant—also, fermenting. The previous tenant had cut decals into the silhouettes of birds and smoothed them onto the windows that frame the garden. The first time I confronted these avatars, I worried they’d beckon rather than discourage their breathing relatives. But I’m far from an authority on animal behavior. - Anne Goldman, "Air Traffic"