a short sunbreak barely an hour otherwise it is still save for water falling from branch to boulder say an echo of the prior rain the stone worn smooth from years of the same year’s end time is somehow more perceptible say the way a sunbeam is caught in low-lying mist the way memories return to fill empty space the garlic has sent up new green shoots like swords, or say tongues–
Nearing year’s end the upstairs window frames the endless forest firs and cedars oscillating in the wind small storm, but the paper says get ready, something big is rolling in from the coast or maybe we are hurtling towards it this planet spins after all
Christmas Eve among the pelagic is not un-festive, the ruby rockfish striped with silver tinsel scales, the oystercatcher’s scarlet beak, in the tropical house the leopard ray slides down the sides of its acrylic tank they aren’t sure why, it must feel nice, belly white as snow, one enormous single flake, falling and rising comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Given the rarity of sun we can forgive its low insistent exuberance flooding our eyes from all directions the woodpeckers chatter each call a rapid succession of questions and answers at the edge of this forest almost everything is soft a maze of damp boughs and spongey loam sunbeams that pool honey on the moss the fur of the coyote laid out by the ditch its legs outreached and stiff as branches
Winter is here now armoring the trees with small blades of frost the silence absolute the fog emphatic the Douglas squirrel traversing the birch branch seems unnatural the hours pass dreamlike with an elasticity of time there is hardly any snow no horizon at all the sky low and matte the inside of an eggshell and here we wait
This weird spring light that fills the house with green bright through the curtains the lashings of rain the day surges then cedes a thrush sings its cool low call the mist comes down into the pines behind the woodshed the forest behind us growing shadowed and deep somewhere out there the newly woken bear is making its way along the edge of a dream
Cuetlaxochitl when not blighted or root-bound you are a lanky thing almost unrecognizable when green we know you only seasonally by your fiery bracts as a crimson attendant to the shortest days of winter which is another way to say the longest nights— here as always words are problematic we hear what is said but not what is omitted and accept cheery propagation without a second thought
these days are mostly dark a trick of latitude headlights, brakelights strung like beads throughout the hills— everything beyond them the arras of night even knowing well the trees, the park even seeing them aglow in the low strange sunset not one hour ago I am now uncertain the cars pass and pass by like electrons in their tracks there are no stars there is no sky just an aperture thrown open an expectant thing […]
The spiderwebs are all that is holding this together everywhere now in these odd days that exist between summer and fall the same stale heat or frost at dawn the sun ceding more readily the punch hole moon the geometries of birdflight anything could happen when did that become a threat?
little bird waiting for the others ready for a fight against frozen nights the frost-laden dawns heavy mornings where the sun is loathe to rise I’m a little late to replace the feeder you wait on a bare branch still and small as a leaf for the pink glass globe of nectar of life itself snow begins to fall is it right to intervene or like all else is this kindness guilelessly but still something […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 