Two New Poems in SIREN

photo: Daniel Tong

Many, many years ago, Ashdown Forest in Sussex inspired Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Woods. Earlier this year, the forest caught fire.

I wrote about this wildfire—and some other feelings—for SIREN magazine's "Sanctuary" issue.

Read the poems here.

Two New Poems in Butter

detail of "Orpheus and Eurydice" by Frederic Leighton

I've been on a small-poem kick for quite some time now. Two of these spiky little creatures are out now in Issue Two of Butter.

Read them here.

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.

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.)

Good News, Everyone!

Big news, too: in collaboration with Grant of the Guild of Scientific Troubadours, I've set some of my poetry to music, and may even be dabbling in songwriting. Our first team effort is a spoken-word version of "Watasenia Scintillans Addresses the New Graduates."



Watasenia Scintillans Addresses the New Graduates
She clutches the podium with translucent arms.
She is older than her picture.
She closes her eyes slowly.
We all lean in.
"Life…" she says, tasting each costly letter,

"Life is short. Light your whole self up
every chance you get."



You can download the track over at Bandcamp if you're so inclined. Grant and I (collectively now known as Squid Pro Crow) have all sorts of good stuff in the works, so do stay tuned.

To the God of Rocks

"Not for man, but for the bee, the moth, and the butterfly, are orchids where they are and what they are."

Neltje Blanchan, from Wild Flowers Worth Knowing, 1917

Then what are we to think
of the hapless geode? Why ever line
the stone’s stomach
with glittering, secret cities? What benign purpose
could these skylines possibly serve?

For a full stone age you sat idly by
as the peacocks bickered
on Olympus. Some glint
of their meddlesome eyes
must have bounced across the clouds.

And your poor geode would have slept--
cozy in his earthen nest—had you
not betrayed him. With a shameless brush
you tarred heartless stars
into his good gray skin.

And now the peacocks’ playthings
pluck your sparkling plum from the dust.
They gather with growing fists. Suspect his shine.
They chant for an answer. Smash him
to shards.



photograph by flickr user EDF Andromeda

What to Do When a Poet, Now Dead, Releases a New Book of Poems

in memory of Deborah Digges



Read the editor's note.

Reflect that this manuscript
has been respected. Wonder,
when you read that they tried
to preserve her intentions,
how much of her handwriting spattered
each page.

Read the epigraph--something
obscure--well, that's how
she would have wanted it.

Read the apologetic jacket,
the back cover with its
flat, detached praises.
On the back flap, her photograph.

Look hard at the headshot
as though her eyes, warm even
in a black and white rectangle,
have some explanation.

Close the book.

Try again tomorrow.




Painting: Cloud #16 by Ambera Wellmann

The Holding Pattern

After a long day of waiting
on standby in San Antonio,
I win a window seat. I sit.
The aluminum cradle rocks
as baggage is hefted
and temporarily dropped. More delays,
sings the pilot in the speakers.
Thunderstorms over Atlanta.

Eventually we leave.
The heatsticky clouds
are black potholes in the air.
Gold lightning laces dark earth
to dark sky. My world
turns sideways.

Gravity, you greedy girl,
give me a few more minutes.
I will be yours again
before this storm
is over.





photograph by Marko Tarvainen

In Spring

Everyone’s cold. To-do list
stretches miles and I won’t
get out of bed. Email from a sane man
screams I AM AFRAID
YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ME
and I’m dropping small tears
on your shirt but you’re
not in it. Kids outside
are doing what they’re supposed to,
screaming, pushing, falling down,
and I see your frown in a photo
and it’s frostbite on my bones.

You’re gone. Can’t feel
my feet, but lavender fingers ache.
Grief counselors preach acceptance:
You aren’t coming back.

I say, take me, wakening earth,
take what’s left of this frozen stone.
Close that wound up. Let spring begin.


photograph by Allie Taylor

A Complete List of My Regrets (So Far)

1. Brad—
Lenox? Linden?
Lennon?—
definitely him.

2. And two months ago,
when I had the chance,
not stepping over
the ankle-high fence
to take your hand
and stand with you,
laughing, under the biggest willow
on Saint Stephen's Green.



photograph by Esther Moliné

Sea Green

I.
The shores at Shankill
are mostly deserted;
rocks roll in the waves
as the far sun sets.
You pull paper plates,
a bottle from your jacket;
I dig in my bag
for the late lunch you packed.

Olives; hard sausage, cubes
of white cheese, bumping
cradle-gentle in their green oil.


II.
You're fishing deep dark pockets
for the silver forks you fingered;
in my head I'm reading
wet words
from your last letter. That same picnic,
the same stumbling surf, the same far sunset:
the same circumstances,
and some other me.

Phosphene

Man, you are man, mosaic--
One shimmering image, three kinds of smiles,
Ten frowns--

We think of loss
As a hammer; juggernaut;
Bowling ball; forest fire;
The river, shaving stone. I
nevitable.

But loss
Is an a
mbush, and each wind
Blinds me anew
With handfuls of sand

That were tiles


That were blue

That were gray

That were blue

Green eyes.

The Lovesick Ornithologist Justifies Her Plane Ticket

Iron containing short nerve branches in the upper beak of birds may serve as a magnetometer to measure the vector of the Earth magnetic field (intensity and inclination) and not only as a magnetic compass, which shows the direction of the magnetic field lines. Whether this magnetic map is consulted, strongly depends on the avian species and its current motivation to do so...research has...suggested that magnetic compass and magnetic map sense are based on different mechanisms and are localized at different sites: The magnetic compass resides in the eye, the magnetometer for the magnetic map lies in the beak.
Dr. Gerta Fleissner





So that's it then, lovebird of mine:
our eyes alone won't do it. Point A
to B, I see it, sure,
but won't find my way to it.

I'll fly and fight and never tire
until this ocean's crossed;
but 'til we're mouth
to mouth, my dear, I'll be
as good as lost.



original bird-compass article here.
photograph by Claire

First Night By the Baby Monitor

for Zippy--she'll be fine.


Daughter, in pitch black, two shapes:
the thick, blurry line of night
doing what it does, coldsucking
tender flesh from your every fingertip;
but beside it, the warm gray triangle,
furred, melting, that somewhere
contains you, sleeping.










photograph by Vanna

An Appeal to Hestia, on the Eve of My Son's First Semester

I make a fire in my hands and look skyward,
and then look down again; the goddess of what matters
doesn't dally in the clouds. Set the fire
in front of me. This small flame,
this first sacrifice, I offer,
where I can't draw in salt
or burn sweet herbs. Keep him warm.
Keep him safe. May his new home
be a new home and not
just a cold room, a room
too far away.






photograph by Tom

Pallas Athene

Here where the marble toes
Crumble, a temple. Can you see it?
Hundreds and hundreds of years ago,
Before these streets had stones.

She was a great beauty,
This Pallas Athene, not unlike your grandmother
In her own way.
When first they brought Athene here
She was a perfect picture of war;
Seabirds did not dare land on her.

Look at her now. See that white tear?
This is the rain of ages appearing.
But look, my daughter,
At the wind-worn face:
Time has smoothed the chiseled cheeks;
Her eyes are soft as Aphrodite's.



photo courtesy of P at What Possessed Me.

When the Witch Ball Breaks

When the ball breaks a fox
finds your best layer and the baby cries
with shining splinters you can't find.

When the ball breaks your shoes
are dusted with powdered glass.
Every step is a challenge
to the feet you have toughened all summer.

When the ball breaks
the window has broken with it.
One wall is gone.
You sleep at the neighbors'.




photograph by Ian Mackenzie
more about witch balls here

Lady Suo's Clavicle: A Corollary

after Lady Suo (11th-12th cent.)

That early fall night
When I woke to find
Your sleeping cheek (warm weight
On my shoulder) may never
Have happened,
But the dream is nearly enough.





photograph by Ani Eleuterio

Interlude: Other People's Poetry, Inappropriately Timed Haiku Edition

That spring night I spent
Pillowed on your arm
Never really happened
Except in a dream.
Unfortunately I am
Talked about anyway.





-Lady Suo (11th-12th cent.), tr. Kenneth Rexroth.
One of my favorite poems in every season.

To the Girl I Was When I Bought This Book

The easy thing would be
to hate you: the smear
of your dull pencil is enough
to sigh my breathing.
You printed your name,

careful and proud, believing
you'd want it forever. I know
this book is brittle
from an avalanche of tissues. I know
you wanted blackberries

but planted only thorns.
These pages are stretched, bowed and tired,
this spine is nearly surrendered.
The hard part--and this
you even know--is arriving

at the endpapers, where (you
know) I will forgive you.




photograph by Signora Oriente