I ate

sunlight

water

air

grew

flowered, then

propagated

From my sides

sprouted two pups that grew until they cleared my shadow, then

snip!

Sheared from me

transplanted

rooting

growing tall

—someday soon—

flowering

Bromeliads bloom only once

shortly before they die

just like the rest of us

I turn towards the sunlight—

phototropism

love, and

hunger

—and I feel the scars

on my hips

I have known minutes that cut like knives,

And seconds that stretched to the horizon and back.

Once, there were a pair of big green eyes

That looked like all the tomorrows I could ever want.

The road ends. Suns set. The fire dies.

This angry churning ember inside me does not.

When I stand on the edge of the precipice

And look out across the disconsolate sea

And look in across the disconsolate me

I understand

And I expand to fill infinity.

I went to the ocean this week.

I also went

          to the mountain

          to the desert

          to the caldera of a volcano.

I was looking for something but did not know

that I was looking nor

did I find anything at all.

I know to you that makes as much sense as

          a farro-colored doe with big eyes like big questions

          the pleasurable pop sound of bull kelp bulbs

          the spines of alpine trees like bleached whale bones.

I was running from something but did not know

that I was running nor

did I think of you at all.

I know that you and I do not make sense as

          you did not see the doe

          nor heard the bulbs

          nor climbed to find those spines.

I went to the ocean this week,

          to the forest, the desert, and the caldera

          and Max I went alone

          and Max I returned, sincerely.

This winter's snows were thick, heavy, and often.

And then there was the ice storm,

          and the power line cracked and spat blue lightning,

          and fell into your frozen arms.

Spring was late coming,

          and when it finally arrived it was a monsoon:

          relentless rains, relentless wind,

          the clouds ever-grey, the sky ever-cold.

You leafed anyway--a lovely yellow-green froth,

          an airy crown of soft gold-kissed blades.

Now you are dying.

The maple across the way is plump with summer sun;

          you hang listlessly,

          a weary girl after a long night,

          verdant gown of lace slipping from your slender shoulders.

You are too young to be so tired.

You set your branches down like heavy burdens.

I gather them in the morning,

          and stack them neatly at your feet.

It could be I am projecting and you will soon raise every stem into the sunlight,

          and outgrow that saucy maple across the street.

But today you are tired,

          rain-beaten,

          sun-starved,

          snow-bruised.

You deserve better. 

You deserve better than this concrete curb, this asphalt creek.

You deserve to return home to the Eastern river valleys.

You deserve a dream of starlings and crows,

          of snowshoe hares and grey squirrels. 

You deserve better than this slow death,

          the impending chainsaw,

          that will leave nothing of you behind

          save for a quiet hole 

          beside my driveway,

          and a disquiet soul

          within my breast.

Wood sorrel:

Tastes like sour apples.

A cheerful companion,

          lining damp trails.

When long shadows linger, her wings fold,

          tuck under,

          like a cold moth.

Morning glory:

She explodes at dawn,

          a riot of unsubtle color.

Look at me! she shouts.

When touched by dusky fingers, she implodes,

          crumples,

          a dying star on the vine.

Nyctinastic:

A response to external stimuli.

A slow and gentle inhalation

          at end of day.

A pulling inwards

          of everything that must be protected.

A re-furling 

          of bloom and of leaf

          in case dawn does not come again.

Can a garden be depressed?

I wrap myself

in crepe-paper petals,

and wait for light.

Once, upon a field of snow,

I stood

hate filling

every pricked hair on my body.

          Dear reader, are you somewhere warm as you read this?

          Are you somewhere safe?

He dragged me from my bed 

into that frozen graveyard,

littered with the brittle corpses of

          grape fern,

          bitterroot,

          arnica,

to stand beside a black-cold creek.

          If you read this 

          in the sunshine,

          you will not understand.

My job was to watch him fish.

My job was to witness his power

over living things

including myself.

My job was to stand quietly

no matter how often 

he raised his rod.

Where I was not hate, I was numb.

Where I was not numb, I was waiting.

For a man cannot hook and shoot and destroy forever,

but the fish will always run.

          It is a mercy of the green spring,

          dear reader,

          that we forget the traumas of winter.

          In your sun-warmed skin,

          you can hardly recall frozen fields and frightened fish.

          Revel, but be not complacent.

          The seasons turn.

Like a lamb living in a pack of wolves,

you wonder why they hurt you when they love you.

You note that your muzzle is not so sleek and sharp.

You tremble at their snapping maws,

hide from their howling yawps.

But the den is safer than the woods outside.

So you believe.

You might think, one day, to venture from the mouth of the den,

through trees, into fields. 

You might push into folds of wool and 

think, "Here is home, here is my flock."

But the sheep will run from your hot breath, your panting heart.

Your teeth are too bright.

Your fingers are the wrong shape.

Oh little fool.

Oh scared child.

You are not sheep.

You are not wolf.

You do not belong in den or pack or flock or field.

Yours is the darkness of the forest, the hum of the craggy mountains.

You are the lonely wandering bear, 

the bobcat on the ridge.

You must walk the narrow trail and drink from cold streams.

Not for you the frenzied tussle of fur and yip,

Nor the hollow-eyed mastication of grass.

For you, the wind against bark, the crisp of dried moss.

Solitude is your pack and pride.

There is strength in numbers but there is power in standing alone.

If you try to run with wolves you will fall.

Your magic is your singular signal, your unique call.

Be the oak, the moose, the peak of the mountain.

There is no loneliness here.

There is no fear, no heartbreak.

With the expanse all around you

and the sky opened wide, 

you will be the freest creature that ever lived.

It is an odd snow, these caltrops and whirligigs

these green blades and brown stones

that tumble out of branches

or drift down

as the tree exhales.

* * *

What is that bird that wakes me every morning?

He sings the opening lines of a song

but never finishes it.

It is not the flute of the meadowlark,

nor the percussion of the crow.

Perhaps he is a stranger to these parts

and he is looking for the end to his song.

* * *

I can hear the rivers and the trails calling

but I cannot answer;

I have other masters just now.

But I hear them.

I feel the water in my skin,

the dust on my teeth.

I am coming. I am coming.

* * *

You think the sky is blue but see this:

there is a film of yellow spread finely over it.

This honey-coated day,

this air outside so soft,

how can I not feel a little bit wild?

There is a slick grey smear down my sternum

like a seal stranded ashore

all wet black eyes and oily, lichened skin

cold weight between aching breasts.

Like particles entangled

with a universe between them

but still feeling the push and pull of the other.

That is what we are.

A chemical reaction. A kinetic energy. A rather simple

mathematical formula.

I dream of wrapping my hand around this grief.

I want to pluck it from my chest

feeling the sudden relief of its removal.

I would kiss it softly, fondly--

for it has been a long friend of mine--

and then I would slip it into the sea.

If ever there was a homeland for sorrow, it is the sea.

I would watch the dark shape of the thing disappear

into the cold waters.

A seal sliding between the waves.

A piece of jasper sinking into sand.

I would be sorry to see it go.

We are entangled, you and I,

as much as any two particles of matter ever could be.

When I have drowned our shared grief,

will you breathe again too?

Sand, stone, sea, sky.

All the grey things of the world now contain us.

We are so heavy.