Thinking of a river, thinking of a lake, of water, cool and far from here, and of passage, if not arrival, of what comes after endings, and also beginnings, what’s beyond, what’s more– Thinking of the forest floor, gestalt of cast off needles and moss, how gracefully it accepts a weight, gives way but doesn’t break, and with each year how it grows– in place.
Sometimes like a cataract the artist’s eye trained to see negative space and so used to starting with a blank but what else works that way really just try to pay a bill with possibility hyperopia more a defect than a marketable skill
In the distance the sky a turgid pewter gray to a lowering blue but here it was just a bit of wind and waiting– . Catatonic in the elevator the woman said how is your day going my husband just fell twelve feet but he’s going to be ok I think he’s in surgery now and asked for positive vibes . It never did thunder so I did instead but a peal or an appeal […]
Waking in a city of birds a scaffolding of songs scrapings in the gutter guttural divine calls beyond the open window half-closed curtains half -closed eyes the only way to know the ephemeral nothing quite present slow departure slow arrival this one beginning among many others and a motion not a place
Real sunsets now fanfares for the days now not slipping away unnoticed but lingering in fuchsia and gold denouements but still, endings . this isn’t a blue tint that would be too obvious a thing this is colorless odorless an uncanny world preserved plasticine– . I cannot seem to touch it
To fill a void one must first acknowledge it exists– and failing that expansion must go outward unbindable highway 2 at dawn a woman possessed but even at these new falls bigger than the last falls even with their most conclusive roar and electric moss rocks and clean air I still think here here’s where that hiker fell in and went over yes nature giving but yes nature taking away even at the lake the […]
I know it’s a glacial lake hence the hue– unearthly erethral more green than blue I had seen photos imagined it for days and when I went it looked the same but of course different it’s a trick being too well-versed in imagination I sometimes think I know every thing but then the tell like some alpine salamander swimming out past the wreck of some half -submerged log casting tiny ripples minuscule shadows but what […]
[A dialogue of self and houseplants] I: I gave all the orchids away too intolerant of their constant demands Phalaenopsis, Cymbidium: We were victims of your inconsistency– a season of doting and then, the droughts I: I bought small cacti to replace them trading bristles and spines for fragile delicacy Escobaria vivipara: And yet you’ve only just noticed that our flowers are fake– dried crimson hot-glued in place for shame I: And the lovely jade […]
It’s beautiful so beautiful but it isn’t a friend. Turquoise in the shallows hints at depth or deception. There’s always a way through even if this isn’t it. These rills these standing eddies like words spoken without a tongue unknowable yet understandable once you know half of it is wind and the landscapes underwater is most of the other what remains after that is equal parts beauty and fear.
I take it back what I said about relief these nights still have teeth and the last stretch of lilac sky between ink-limbed trees seems farther than reasonable peaceful yes it’s leaving after all
OPTIONAL POETRY 