A New Thing! Sort of!

It's not written down, exactly, but it is the latest offering from Squid Pro Crow:
 


Thirty
Maybe it approached gradually, 
Like the three-toed sloth 
In the zoo’s reptile house. 
I didn’t think the mossy thing 
Was real, or really coming, 
Until it was nearly upon me. 

Maybe it all showed up at once— 
So fast I’d never have seen it, 
Even if I knew where to look. 
One day last summer, I blinked. 
The empty feeder suddenly 
Offered two hummingbirds. 

Regardless of how, it happened. 
I recognized her this morning 
In the ladies’ room at work. 
She was washing my hands. 
I adjusted her tasteful earrings 
And smoothed her messy braid.


words by me; music and everything else by Grant.

After Corrag

for you, who are tangled,
berry-stained; for you, seaweed-eyed
and skittish in a market; for you,
water baby, moon child, razor-
tongued witch woman--for you, a gift:
i am one too.

sisters then, may the grass
be sweet, crushed underfoot.
may the scattershot stars
become a blanket we, alone, can share.
may we find peace in what enwilds us.
may what was lonely grow
to make the full use of our hearts.



art by Melissa Peck
Read more about Corrag in Susan Fletcher's incredible book Witch Light.

Well, It's Not Poetry, But It Is a Thing, Written Down

Remember the blue whale on the ceiling? I went back. A miniature version of the article I wrote about that visit was published this weekend in the Washington Post. You can read it on page 9 of the magazine, or online here. With luck, I can publish the full-length article soon, too.

The Hits Just Keep On Comin'

More new music from Squid Pro Crow: Volvox Minuet. Words by me; wonderful, wonderful music by Grant.


Volvox Minuet
In one old studio my round instructor
is warming up her knees. Always the knees,
she said. You don't know what you've got
til it's gone. And then the music:
plaintive songs from long-
forgotten instruments.
My hair has slipped
from its braid. My teacher
counts, a hypnotist's trope,
and I am five hundred years ago.
The braid there has slipped too,
but there someone has bent
to mend it.

There is a pond on the way home,
a rich green plate of single-celled forms.
And in there two algae awaken.
A shy current pushes their arms
to preparation. The music begins.

Like new stars we all have been,
so blind to the cosmos and any orbit
but our own.


For more of our music, visit our Bandcamp page.

New Music from Squid Pro Crow

Barnard's Star is reborn! Music by Grant; words by me; ambient sounds from the Voyager Golden Record.



Barnard's Star
I send my heartbeat to you,
and the sum-song of my dreams.
Someday you'll unpack the impulses,
muscle-clicks like cooling cars.
Through endless fields of fire and dust
we send whale song, one noisy kiss.
Bach. A baby's cry.

Every other romance will wane
and waste away. Symphonies
are lost without their listeners.
Even the whale reduces
to a cage of bone and air.
But fast to you, Ophiuchus,
one whispered love is dancing.

For more of our music, visit our Bandcamp page.

This Morning, Miss Sally Is Singing

Most mornings she mutters,
or protests her innocence
to coffee stirrers and pitchers of milk.

"I never did.
I never did see her."

But today, adding nine sugars
to her paper cup, Miss Sally is singing,
and her voice is low and strong.

"Be

grateful. Be
grateful. Be
grateful, oh Lord.
Be grateful."






photograph by Mathew Wilson

Surprise

The baby wears some variation
of the same expression
in every single picture. Sometimes
it's more like panic. Sometimes
the best guess for her round mouth,
wide eyes would be amazement.
Turning the brittle pages,

you imagine the baby at ten years old,
twenty, forty-seven. You see her sitting
regal at seventy-five, arms opened
to accept the incoming child.
She looks down at her grandson
with her own mouth round in wonder,
her eyes grown wide with surprise.




(The beautiful child in the photograph is my pal Birdy Sparling. Her mom Kerri blogs here.)