lissome light of evening

{my back alley, last week before the last of the melting}

{light in the front yard elm, last week also}

* * *

(more fragmented poem-bits)

skin is warm, the scent of dust
i carry through the inland sea –

sprung from that red earth
& cradled in the hipbone of a prairie

awash in light; the saltmetal taste of blood,
lost rabbit’s foot, bright flush of the poppy;

black-starred ground, a thousand seeds
& a second sky inside of me.

* * *

(я нічого не чую, не чую нічого)

once i held you &
felt your ribs under my fingers
like little wooden xylophone rungs
i let my nails go soothing, echoes
tap-tapping to curl up in your hair –

& my sigh stifled, like
a floorboard squeaking i pray
you don’t feel the little tremors
beneath my feet, i can’t let you
feel the beating, taut
trembling shame of my telltale heart –

* * *

This is one of my favourite songs right now -- this new version of the song Cosmia (click there for mp3) by Joanna Newsom. It's on her brand-new EP, 'Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band...'
Her voice is so swooping & her lyrics gorgeously potent. When she sings

dried rose petal, red-brown circles
framed your eyes and stained your knuckles

it's so lovely I don't know what to do. She's mentioned in an interview that this song is about the death of a close friend, & that just makes the whole thing all the more aching. I'm especially in love with all the imagery of the moths, moths as messengers, their little dusty hearts, all that harp-plucking! Something that is alive in the evening, dwelling in spaces between:

beneath the porch light, we've all been circling
beat our dust hearts, singe our flour wings
but in the corner, something is happening!
wild Cosmia, what have you seen?

(the 'cosmia' she's singing about is probably cosmia trapezina)

seeds, leaves, lights.

{elm helicopters, in the park on my way home...}

Here are some poem fragments (some fragments more fragmenty than others) to accompany these illuminated leaves. Not sure what the poem-bits will do next, but they will bask in the sunshine right now.

* * *

how light soothes madness:

all winter i left the candles burning, my sad tallow brain
melting slowly all over the kitchen floor;

but now the sun comes, leaves me fluid, slush running
in the streets slick with the rainbow sheen of oil

& in the muddy gutter winter left a wind-torn lost mitten
dead pigeon yellowed skeleton going to dust

but i pool curbside, a flowing laugh, reflecting elm
branches rooted in blue sky,

the geese flying home calling:
echoing over the gravelly riverbank, the silty delta

shines back all that light & the constant
beyond us

* * *

{leafy parchments, in the river valley when there was still snow}

* * *

how light wakes the earth,
presses its fingers down through
melting snow & coaxes

those young bulb-flowers
pushing up waxy beaks
through dead leaf-lids, her eyes
now open & thirsting at the sun;

how light washes our faces,
each ray like a sweet wafer
on our tongues

& this is what saves us:
(this communion)

its strong hands part strands
of despairing, this something
that exists regardless; how this
earth (for)gives.

* * *

{old wild rose stems, in the river valley a few weeks ago as well}

* * *

you don’t have to tell me;
i know there is no cure.

bloodsap only lasts for
so long, the marrow going
brittle, & all the sweet syrup dry.

yet somehow there is always
something to soothe the sadness:

your bone-white aspens, the fuzz
of their buds alit, the haloes of catkins,
& above that chaotic hopak of crows;

dry seeds of the elm shake out
the winter, wind’s sussurous, soughing rustle,
translucent parchments shining

over bending red willows, cut branches
in their green shock of brightness,
the simple gift of what saves us –

we twist & ache but
there is always that dark wet earth
with us,

all those seeds springing simply from
the chornozemlya of the heart –

* * *

archers of an afterthought.

{little stick-saplings at the place in my forest called the edge of the world}

{feather caught on a wild rose bush, also at riverlot}

{a rabbit's lost foot. alas, unlucky rabbit!}

There's a beautiful song on Andrew Bird's new album 'Armchair Apocrypha' that I am loving very much right now, a simple little elegaic song called Scythian Empires (click there for the mp3). It's not just that I have a thing for my distant, horse-back-marauding, golden-grave-good-making, ornate-anthropomorphic-animal-tattoo wearing ancestors, but because this song is such an elegant little thought about the varying degrees of (im)permanency that everything, that we all, possess.

Scythian Empires by Andrew Bird

five day forecast bring black tar rains and hellfire
while handpicked handler's kid gloves tear at the inseams

their Halliburton attaché cases are useless

while Scotch-Guard Macintoshes shall be carbonized

now they're offering views of exiting empires
such breathtaking views of Scythian empires

Scythian empire
horsemen of the Russian steppe
Scythian empire
archers of an afterthought

routed by Sarmatians
thwarted by the Thracians
Scythian empire

kings of Macedonia
and the Scythian empire

muddy with twigs & branches.

{red willows, riverlot, april 7th}

{grove, riverlot, this past saturday}

{illuminated windblown grass, riverlot field , also this past saturday}

There is a very new Björk song out now, called Earth Intruders (Mark Stent Extended Mix, mp3) ... It's a powerful song, with all her words creating these images of bones being reconstructed, muddy excavations, endless marching pulsing on, everything flashing by quickly, fragmented -- but with a certain serene urgency despite all that, & it makes me think of spring, the agency of the earth, & how the earth renews itself, heals itself, & forgives.

willow sunday

{pussywillows! actually, these aren't willow trees; they're aspen poplar. so these are pussypoplars}

{i did find actual pussywillows down by the river, but there were only a few so i didn't want to cut them to take home -- so i brought the more abundant poplars instead. they're still soft, just like kitten feet}

* * *

Bud' vysokyj yak verba, zdorovyj yak voda, i bahatyj yak zemlya.
(Be as tall as the willow, as healthy as water, as rich as the earth)

-- Ukrainian blessing for Willow (Palm) Sunday