First the sow and then the cub flat-faced, gouache-furred up above the service road climbing the bike trail through thick black alder— then the cub but not the sow, still not the sow, just wind in the tall grass, presentiments and doubts . A day later, at the border, waiting in line, looking at photos, car after car, lurching forward, again the menace of the unseen, an arbitrary line, truck routes, corn fields drawn at […]
the age of this place! and still it said the basalt flows of the Garibaldi range are relatively young— one could say something, then, maybe, about lenses, about powers of scale, how a thing comes into focus, so another falls away, something about the buoyancy of names, floating above a place, vagaries of translation, of words soft as wet ash, how this alphabet cannot spell them, how silt turns this lake otherworldly and opaque, how […]
arboreal sigh the wind lifts the boughsand lets them fallpresaging rainthese little tells—the terse alarm callsof the nuthatchessaying maybe, maybe the cougars have comedown low after stalkingin pairs two mountain ranges overso unusually bold—perhaps a harbingerthe canopy dense the understory opening up like a secretno berries are ripe yetbut among the stands of mountain ash like clarion bellsa slew of tiger lilies
We followed the creeka river, reallyloud in its bankslouder still underthe amphitheaterof a bridge—a striking huesomething primordialless green than bluebut not fully eitherrunoff from a glaciermelting unseenhigh in the mountainabove usa supposition—most of the foothillsblanketed by clouds.We picked up rocksand guessed wildlyat their provenanceGranite? Shale?and threw them backinto the wateror ricocheted themoff boulders to skipthem far into the deepand I wonderwhen you are olderwill you see these flightsas random chanceor as probabilitiesunpredictable, but known—and will […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 