The red bird streaks, Fixes the flower In the vase. But it thuds to the ground, Felled by a force field That it perhaps guessed At the last moment was there: A reflection, a moment Of self-recognition. It lies, Stunned, Before rising again To its feet and its flight, Gaining one more chance To tell … Continue reading Reflection

It runs black and grey like static in the nerve channels. Suddenly there are holes in the pages on which you are trying to right the wrongs of your life. Not quite hunger, not quite sadness yet not, not. The river is filled with thorns. Your skin shrinks against you, constricting the flow of time, … Continue reading Static

Things that seem to stand Still really don’t. That tree: it breathes And stretches, and roots. That stone: it flows And moults, and crystals. That star: it eats And spins, and transmutes. A river is not a thing: It is the water that rivers. And the water is not a thing: It is the atoms … Continue reading Still

They wanted to fly, Daedalus and his son: like birds, like gods. And so they fashioned wings of wax and escaped across the sea. But Icarus flew too high, son-melted. The story is supposed to be about hubris, but we didn’t learn. Instead we took revenge, fashioned new toys, not from wax but oil, not … Continue reading The Fall

in support of the efforts to protect Old Growth forests in Fairy Creek, and everywhere. For centuries they have stood: watchtowers of bark and branch, roots that record and remember. And now, again, we cut — the birds raise the alarm, as we raze their homes to the ground. Not logging — What is the … Continue reading Fairy Creek

The sun is setting. Again. As it does. I suppose. I am here still. I hear. Still. A blackbird screeches the day’s end. A siren scars the dusk like a scalpel. Fire in the sky briefly, then gray. I gaze at the horizon, searching for the space between any two things. The moon hangs: a … Continue reading On(ly) Words

A scar on the skin Of our ground Splits, opens like an eye That has been crusted shut By salt and old tears fall Like rain filling the new valley With molten grief at the heart of things Makes the plates shift and shatter Like memories into mosaics On the floor of the cathedral Over … Continue reading Scar

Proof They  say (who  says) that we (not  you) were born with a bang, and a big one too, as though someone  set off a cannon or popped a balloon or dropped a (holy) book. They say (well one said) that reality is relative (like pronouns and money): I could fly fast and light and … Continue reading Proof

What is a person? An invisible point Of view The centre Of a cloaked circle An asymptotic history Tending towards a soul An imaginary number Of irrational roots