Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
I like trees. I like them a lot.
day breaks
like a wishbone
how lucky
that the longer portion
remains with us
in darkness
under the interstate
in that dull
interminable thunder
a school of salmon-
colored leaves
stream down
from trees given
scraps of now-
worthless land
a cylindrical concrete pier
is tree enough
for virginia creeper
its forked tendrils
its scarlet molt
a bit of fox grape
and now for
a fish crow’s
falsetto caw
glimpsed in passing
at seventy miles an hour
dark eyes in a pale
heart-shaped face
no longer playing
possum
and later when
i measure myself
against a massive
mossy boulder
i feel my fragility
a winter wren tut-tuts
but one helicopter breaks
a whole mountain’s silence
i get out my phone camera
still hungry to possess
a young pine caught
in a dead oak’s embrace
leaves in mid-air against
a wild tangle of limbs
clouds furthering the end-
lessness of mountains
i find the stone-walled spring
dry for the first time
descending an eroded path
deep in fallen leaves
i walk like a drunk
to avoid injury
loose-limbed and slow
resolutely unsteady
and manage to hold
the ground at bay
stiltgrass encroaches
like a bad combover
the seeds having hitchhiked in
on shoes and bike tires
the trail leads under
a fallen tree
why is it so difficult
to bow my head
and then i’m on my knees
among baby porcupines
american chestnut husks
spiny and golden
from not one but two trees
beside the trail
canopy-height and twice
as thick as my neck
with no sign of blight
no earlier dead sprouts
i take pictures to challenge
my own disbelief
amid the drama
of changing seasons
and the unreadable
gestures of aging oaks
in the silence of the mountain
i can hear my own pulse
a faint but steady
drip of water
somewhere in a hollow
under the rocks
an idyll of falling
drifting unmoored
from growing inlets
of October sky
must include the un-
remastered original
bright blue lightly
frosted weather
and a village nestled
against a mountain
the newly resurfaced road
that dead-ends at a trailhead
so the dog-walkers
can drive to the woods
so a canine snout can track
each falling leaf
while its human puzzles
over arborglyphs on a snag
where larvae came of age
and left the tree as beetles
after completing
their masterpieces
yes of course the foliage
in every shade of flame
sic transit gloria mundi
on a Tuesday afternoon
where death is life
for the leaf duff
a universe with
its own laws
inhabited by iron worms
and crescent moon millipedes
woodland jumping mice
and the shy timber rattler
basking in the middle
of a multi-use trail
its dark velvet scales
its electric buzz
covering for
a quiet getaway
through dry leaves in which
the wind also rustles
as if it were already
gray November
and dogs had noses
only for frozen gut piles
but already the deer
are hounded by lust
scrape away fallen leaves
in an agony of longing
until even the soil
speaks their name
a lexicon of scents
to which the pines contribute
losing hands
of five needles
for even evergreens
yellow with age
and the wind has
such a discriminating touch
while the oaks of course
take their sweet time
drop acorns before turning
in a depth of sky
not seen since April flowers
began spewing pollen
but if nature’s last green
is also gold
hasn’t the whole summer
been a false flag operation
and how can true colors
not intoxicate
whether burgundy or rosé
pale ale or amber
let blue jays steal the cry
of a red-tailed hawk
who’s otherwise occupied
wallowing in black and white
feathers of
an answered prayer
day breaks
into increments of gold
a falling leaf flits back and forth
like a doomed moth
acorns gestate
in the throat pouch of a jay
the breeze is spicy with rot
i take deep lungfuls
nuclear armageddon
is trending on twitter
the bluestone road
seduces me again
*
each of my feet aches
in its own way
the left to take wing
the right to take root
they take me where hemlocks
pry open the rocks
and vultures drift past
without flapping
a section of trail famous
for being hard on boots
it is difficult says the guidebook
to get any rhythm going
as you step from rock
to rock
but this is the music
i grew up with
a grouse cups his wings and drums
on the skin of the air
*
distant booms
a shooting range perhaps
the sun goes in but
the yellow keeps glowing
chickadees announce my presence
in unflattering terms
to a mixed flock feeding
on mountain ash berries
a rock shifts under me
i shift with it
at a trail intersection someone
has dug a hole in the rocks
revealing the water table
its serving of birch leaves
farther along the hemlock
burnt from below
by an untended camp fire
that turned roots to charcoal
two years later it’s dead
but for one last limb
stripped down to the skeleton
for a sky burial
*
descending the flank of the ridge
i find a proper spring
yellow coral mushrooms
extend crossed fingers
the mountain can punish
moments of inattention
but i am a bad student
i walk in two places at once
a place of wings
and a place of roots
that night the moon flies
through prismatic clouds
at its brightest
and most manic
stained by the dark
beds of seas
i lug my silence into a blue forest
its lost cloud
loud with jays jeering
at my blue hat
what makes it so high
and lonesome on the map
baptised from below
in the water table
enabling the spirit to speak
in broken oak—
no hoax this glossolalia
a cross-worded puzzle
muzzling all green thoughts
leaf by leaf
grief needs no bait to bite
no hook to hold
old as the reflection
in a phone’s black glass
amassing unknown calls
vibrating on silent
give me shade tolerance
so i can worship the sun
at a cellular level
teach me the dance
in abundance
the sects of insects
how to work like
an artist’s model
with wind or fire
how to mine in place
and turn the soil
into an accomplice
how to communicate
with an alien life form
in speech acts of pure energy
how to grow wound wood
walling off all the hollow
broken places
i pass a black glove stuck
to a white oak beside the trail
and soon i am seeing trees with faces
pot-bellied old maples
great buttressed oaks
limbs spreading in all directions
spared for the shade
they once gave livestock
now filling in fast
with pole timber
and a blue-green haze
of little white pines coming up
an old pasture slowly climbing
toward the bovine clouds
for sale:
wilderness
travel
trailer
wilderness is within you my friend
assuming you have a healthy gut microbiome
*
we live in a time of signs and wonders
known as the present moment. a moment in which a tiger swallowtail might be bugging off but you capture it anyway in a good-enough-for-the-internet photo on your phone
E.T. was prophesy man i mean look at us now we are all extra, extra terrestrial man, just always phoning home. I guess that’s what it means to be terrestrial
a log i’ve stepped over hundreds of times was garnished today with these distinctive-looking cup fungi which i have never seen before in my life
***
it’s interesting to consider how much or how little work the word “natural” does in a phrase such as “natural smoke flavor added”
***
mayapples may not ripen until August it turns out, on extremely rare occasions when the local wildlife doesn’t get to them first
tastes may vary but to me a mayapple tastes less like an apple than something that may or may not be made with apples—like a junk-food version of an apple, with a very different texture in the mouth
not at all bitter, like wild lettuce
but nothing i’m going to make a point of seeking out the way i go after sassafras for example
***
when i last saw her this one-winged wasp had walked all the way up to her nest in the rafters
*
walking up the road after dark to look at the stars, but the road is full of winking glowworms—how can the sky compete?
I mean I think it’s a junkyard, but what if it’s really an art installation?
On the other side of the interstate, there’s a mountain. The highway department puts up a chain-link fence to keep it at bay.
If I ran a movie review site, nothing would get more than one star. Movies would compete for fractions of a star.
Times are lean. We could run out of stars.
No one could afford to live under such a dark sky. They’d go mad with loneliness.
I saw another fireball the other night. Spend time under the stars and you see things: fish, a bull, a hunter, you name it. It’s so liberating to realize thanks to modern astronomy that the universe isn’t about us.
That said, there is a gas giant in my guest bedroom. My older brother can’t help his stature or intestinal difficulties. In his religion, everyone gets their own universe someday—a classic Ponzi scheme if you ask me. But what if it’s true?
I think the opposite is more likely the case: everything is drifting farther and farther apart, into an ever emptier void. You can already see it happening. People have that distance in their eyes.
the high inhuman
shriek of a dying rabbit
4th quarter moon
(via Twitter)
***
Finally got a good look at the pair of red-breasted nuthatches who’ve been hanging out in the spruce grove all year, according to my younger brother, and presumably nesting. Like the red squirrel i got a good look at yesterday, they were right near Dad’s grave. The spot is beginning to feel a bit magical, I have to say. Currently there’s a bit of fresh rain-water in the reflecting rock. I’m sitting on the bench listening to the stuttering calls of Linne’s cicadas, “a steady pulsating rattle sounding like a saltshaker” as the Songs of Insects website puts it. They outnumber dog-day cicadas now, of which I’m hearing just two—that buzz-saw whine. I’m also hearing what sound like falling acorns, a very hopeful sign.
***
In my poetry i want to write about nature without breathlessness. Don’t know whether i always succeed. Sharing new poetry on social media is an essential part of my probably Quixotic quest to normalize talking about wildflower sightings and wildlife encounters in the same way people post about the latest books or movies they’ve consumed.
I suppose in time I’ll end up creating a personal iconography of favourite species and other natural phenomena, licensed by the ubiquity of the smart phone and modern search engines—hardly any reference is too obscure anymore. For all that the internet has diminished attention spans, it does still expand access to layers of context that previously would’ve escaped all but the most knowledgeable of readers.
***
Successful ideologies are those that promise more than they can deliver. That way their adherents are never forced to answer for their beliefs. Evangelical conservatism may soon be dead as a political force because its adherents actually achieved one of their main goals, and everyone else is horrified.
***
Somewhere in the world right now a 90-pound weakling is sitting beside a hotel pool writing an epic novel and a 300-pound man in a tiny basement apartment is sweating over a haiku.