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deep time liturgy

at peat bog

they rinsed us from you & we came to
beneath harvest of smoke & our tools

of part memory, part dream & the dead
where they slept beneath our quilts

the peat bog will not forget, so holds
a dropped awl & still-opened hand

of at least one distant ancestor
having never met

dream leaves its memory
on the raw side of hide

& we gathered foxglove
at eventide from hills that bore

its crash, folding fields
to stitch a robe for moons

to outlast where we held the flood
until it remembered us

by settling remains in the moss
of that moor

where only the listening
from here on out is left & now

the feathered chest-dweller
coughs beneath the ribbed rafters

& we wait with low hum of estuarine mud
in our mouths

where round howls
too sharp to keep where

she gathers them
& us

still holding
that flood

by ripple marks in stone
her song remembers

the weight of our collected
bones to whisper back

o water,
where did your flood
last end?

inaudible birds

pending confirmation

on a summer evening in the Super El Niño year
a body gets to worrying
about the birds
how the babies get thrown
from their nests
in the latest desert monsoon
a week after flocks fall
dead in the heat when
the avian flu once thought confined
to factory farms
has leaked somehow to shorebirds
then seals
then sea lions
as though categories were only temporary fences
& i
want to hear what they are saying because
i worry about running
out of time to hear
meanwhile am going
on an hour now trying to log in
to this airline Yes I Did Reset the Password
& again
& again
locking on one thing i can set right by persistence
& attention to detail
& again
it does not work
with a tiny pink error code
& a miniature number
to call
but not now
tomorrow maybe at a less convenient time
when a body should be doing other work
such as the work of living
or else replying
to indicate that i have received the notices
re: updated student loan repayment plans
& re: SAT registration dates for rising juniors
& then onto work email
re: exciting changes coming this semester
(read: same dysfunction/ same hope/ new flavors. . . & a logo!
schedules & possibly even working bathrooms coming soon!)
& i have returned the bagged lettuce to the store
in response to the latest outbreak of whatever
& my daughter came home without my hearing
over three fans so when I wake sweating around 2 am to text
is everything okay? i get moose emoji in reply
& yah are you? with selfie in bed now my turn
lol laughing emoji eyes not adjusted yet
i read the clock wrong moose did not hear
& now the cat on my chest offended
by the visible bottom of her bowl
or perhaps because of the fans so loud
or something in me so loud running
wanting just a little more time to catch
the better end of the story
let there be a better end
to tell it forward this time
to tell ourselves and mean it
not
running
& it is not in the end about getting
anywhere
is it?
only not this
running so loud
& so fast
we cannot hear
the birds

notes on getting grown

with monsters

One of the scariest parts about turning from child to older is the expectation that you will know where you are going. One monster leaves her legs behind before flying. Another can be kept from finding itself again by a sprinkle of salt.

Spend long enough studying these things and eventually you stop asking whether they’re real and start asking different questions.

Where is the nearest river?
How much water is left?
Where are the birds going now?

The Vetala prefers fresh bodies because they still know how to speak.
Fill the bathtub before the water pressure drops.
Kelpies cry before storms.
If lost, leave footprints in mud or snow.

Distress signals come in threes.
Most demons look ordinary.
Emergency flashlights are hanging from the shower hooks.

Turn your ears toward distant sounds like a cat.
Three syllable words work best.
Project your voice:

Internet.
Coconut.
Spaghetti.

bodies of the storytelling kind

every beginning inherits an aftermath

We do not make of ourselves clean lines, nor do we tend to follow them. When we do, it is accident or anomaly. Some call it miracle, but what if the real miracle is how we bulge and bleed, leak and tear? The ways we absorb more than we should be able to hold. If we were ideals, we would not be this way. If we were ideas, we would not be this way. But this is the thing with being bodies. We are made of so much stuff, until we aren’t anymore. To keep growing, we have to leave parts of ourselves behind. We are here to collect ourselves. This beginning is also an aftermath. We gather ourselves in pieces, and then we let them fly.

before

what birds know first

There are things the birds know first. The approach of a hurricane, a radiation leak, the poisoning of a river. You can tell that they know because they leave.

Sometimes a witness to their departure will not notice, until later. Looking back, they will remark how suddenly it occurred to them: there were no birds. Where did they go?

By then, the coming disaster had revealed itself. Before that, the birds disappeared quietly. For most would-be observers, their absence fails to register. It is a non-event. The catastrophic ones are often preceded by a series of non-events like this.

The birds know when to go. It is believed they also know when to return. On that count, those of us in the disaster zones look out and sigh, waiting. And we say to one another, “We’ll see.”

“Wait,” we say, “and see.” Like we know.

Sometimes, though, the birds don’t seem to know. Or if they do, are without other options. That’s when you get the dead bodies around the poisoned lake along a major flyway, or whole flocks falling from the sky. That’s when scientists arrive to collect the bodies.

“We don’t have enough evidence,” they say. In every official briefing they repeat this sentiment. We are in the middle of a non-event. In a time that has no other name, which is called ordinary time. One day we may call this time by another name: Before. But any before is nameless when you are inside it.

wild fools

beyond the towers where the guards stand waiting

Oh, you are a writer? Give us a hero story, then! We’ll get the popcorn, let’s go.

I am not very interested in the hero story.

Tell us about the dragon! How it was slain and everything is safe again!
I cannot. I have no faith in the premise.

?

I have always loved dragons. Imagined ones, metaphorical ones. Besides, I tend to talk to lizards when I walk.

I tire of the way the story must always be about the hero, or those waiting for the hero, or those tending the hero, or those preparing the world for the hero’s return. I want to know who kept the living going while all these heroes were off on their quests. I would like to hear the lizard tell what happened. 

It is curious how often the dragon dies only for its guarded fortune to change hands. The gold. The virgins. Another castle.

?

I have become suspicious of people who can state what they are about. Perhaps this is required now. A mission statement. A brand. A clean line of purpose. Meanwhile the shadow goes about its work.

I know only that my blind spots arrive in multitudes. So, I keep watch instead. I make little shelters. It’s much more bird feeder than monument.

Hi, birds. 

There you are.

Take what you need.

I have no illusion that I am feeding you.

You are feeding me.

Language feels this way, too. I’m not climbing Jacob’s ladder or pulling a sword from a stone. I am near a hearth, tending a loaf. I keep making the same loaf, because wherever I am, there are always hungry mouths. Take what you need. 

Hi, birds. There you are again. Beyond the towers, where the guards are waiting, the gardens have begun again without the hero. Come eat. 

the hidden kept

care and language

I pack a spoon
in my daughter’s lunch.
Then another,
in case the first
should disappear.

Love misplaces things.
I try to preempt the loss.

When a line begins
to murmur
I swing it by the neck—
a soft animal
I mistake for a rope.

I call it poem,
but it writhes,
wants teeth,
wants blood,
won’t feed me
when the guards come.

Just stands there,
quiet and damp,
like something I’ve left
in the sun too long,

then tried to water.

Now my throat closes.
Words spin.

No one comes
with a towel,
no one checks the floor
for shards.

She may find the spoon.
Or this one beneath it—
the one I mean to hide,
a love for when
forgetting comes.

*

This poem recently appeared in the spring edition of MUSE Literary Journal.

hello, stranger

on skinks, swans and other guides

I like the creatures no one chooses as a spirit animal. Skinks. Ice worms. The little dog whose back legs are supported by wheels and who is walked faithfully around the block by a small old woman. If approached from the opposite direction, there comes a moment when she looks up, surprised, with a wide mouth and kind eyes.

The bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus, may live over one hundred years in the cool depths near Greenland. Or the shark of the same region arriving at reproductive age no sooner than the end of the first century alive. 

Also swamp sparrows.

Cephalopods. 

Bagged goldfish.

The as-yet-unnamed ones, still undiscovered.

The swan of Hans Christian Anderson’s Ugly Duckling, who does her best to fit in with the duck family she meets upon hatching, having no way to know that the egg she came from had only rolled away from its proper nest. Whose attempts at doing duck things fail the more she becomes her swan self. 

At a formative age, I decided to be done with the person I seemed to be, and so I set about making a new self. I went about this the way a young, old-feeling person might: by cobbling together suggestions from available sources. Having decided I was missing something vital to the project of becoming, I occasionally took seasonal employment in places I had yet to visit. In the Sierra Mountains, I found unexpected teachers and learned to sing while walking so the black bears would know I was coming.

I also tried smoking while writing, like Joan Didion or Tom Waits. The experiment failed almost immediately. And yet. If I vomit, will that be the old self leaving? I persisted.

On New Year’s Eve, outside a restaurant, the old self remained.

Later that week, I left the just-opened pack of cloves on a wall at the edge of a Vons parking lot, hoping that whoever found it would take it as the kind of serendipitous surprise that announces fortune taking a turn toward some unexpected wonder. That they might pause to enjoy their find and feel themselves understanding that this place, routinely referred to as the Vons parking lot on Tamarack, is so much more.

That they might see it suddenly: an ancient geography of unknown forces.

And be moved to some greeting, however hushed.

Hello, powerful stranger.

That this discovery might nudge into being the possibility of an astonishing response from this sudden sanctuary. Which, while wordless, would sound the body like an urgent whisper. 

Come here.

a short history of subtraction

with misunderstandings re: freedom

First attentions focused on survival, and survival appeared to require a truth. It would be singular. Properly applied, it was supposed to offer liberation. Instead, it invoked additional struggle.

Then came another approach: disappearance. Stones managed it, and certain fish. Entire civilizations, even. With so little remaining after the act, results are inconclusive.

Some seek security by sharing every feeling. Others store provisions in hidden rooms. One strategy involves carrying everything. Another takes nothing at all. No method proved universally reliable.

On the other hand, there are many ways to die. Neglect remains popular. Repeated transplantation has produced mixed outcomes. It is possible to survive by developing shallower roots.

The gliders seemed promising. They moved across the water without disturbing it, attended by doubles made entirely of light. From a distance, the arrangement appeared effortless.

Several years were devoted to the study of reflection. Several more to subtraction. One working hypothesis suggested that freedom might consist of becoming lighter. This hypothesis eventually collapsed.

The way of the ray turned out not to be available. It could pass through what those of earth were required to carry. Below: buried bodies, hidden boons, forgotten names, and other dense materials.

At first this seemed tragic. Later, less so.

The discovery arrived gradually, as weather does. By accumulation. Particles gathering at altitude, suspended in vapor, waiting to rain.

By then many necessary pieces had already been removed. They remained scattered across the hills. Under the pink moon, they resembled sleeping animals.

Recovery efforts continue.

Minutes from the Society of Dirt

where attendance is consistently excellent

I am not the subject, but the background against which he performs himself.

For example, I can be a receptive audience, pliant and agreeable. A receptive audience is always preferable to a resistant one. I am neither, and also both. But these details are irrelevant to our subject, who insists upon unity of vision.

Pulling this off successfully—and it is always a great feat, isn’t it, when everything comes together? —requires a total alignment of the environment. All parts separate, each in its place.

It takes a great deal of effort.

The parts of me that refuse taming learn to separate when needed, as a lizard separates from a caught tail. So I go around leaving tails everywhere, little souvenirs for whoever comes looking.

This is a preferred mode of movement in the subject’s realm. He runs a tight ship, and I am made of whatever collapses an edge. Now solid, now not.

I reject the purity tests, the display cages of possibility, the passion for classification. But I accept these as intractable features of the environment, like leaf blowers and occasional dogpiles.

Poor subject. He exists inside a fiction mediated by others. He notices them primarily as objects requiring arrangement.

He cannot account for the resistance because the resistance is made of teeming earth. By definition, it refuses purity.

He calls us dirt.

From below, we teem here, a laughing rumble at his feet.