Tricia Elliott

Flawless In the next valley over, a bear sleeps beneath the floorboards. Any mother  might see her tiny hairless cubs rooting for life  in the great furred landscape of her world as a miracle and who would argue? Few create…

Two Owls Two owls filled the valley with sound, like ink dropped in water  spreading their tales of voles and justice one, then  the other rose  into moon-stained air riding on northbound currents like feathered whales, vibrating  with songs of…

Pursuit Flanked by magpies, three eagles ride a belly of  late winter air, dripping watery trills like chimes chased or by choice we cannot tell they are heading toward the mountains as flute practice begins and the dog sings along…

Fear Stones carry thunder when held, gently like lynx, stalking hare. Underfoot the snow can explode in a misstep filling the forest with grouse sifting the air with feathers. Ease arrives early and late, if at all between bodies  and…

Shadows Another raven ruffles night sky feathers in watery  sunlight, the kind balanced in ridge-rise for a breathy quarter-tide and from the aspen, looks  east, where beams slide south  to pool like wax  or shadows  cast in re-membered poppy and…

Late Fall Against the green, a flash of white like lightning, or a floater. The dogs leap after hare in winter wear a breath between hemlocks, mossy squirrel cone  scatter, the mushroomed pale faerie ring. A whiff  of magic lingers…

Regaled On the day the moose stopped morning traffic             bent under spreading tines             and pheromones the dog rolled in a urine-scented wallow.             Later, when the clear night’s frost              began to soften, freeing the aven’s curl to mark the slanted light,…

Tracks The hardest day with the cadaver wasn’t bisecting  eyes, unpeeling genitals, or sawing through skull to the muted corrugated brain within, but dissecting hands. Last night I dreamt of tendon-strung puppets  heavily-lined palms, nails chewed to the quick each cut between hands…

Crescent Moon Wolves sang an evening song when the moon was a slender saffron slip not cinema-full over popping buttons and silvered claws but a scissored cut-out in jack-o-lantern glow its hue a match for ripe gooseberry  soft skin of…

When Trees Fall Yes of course we make a sound. All of us herehearingwhen you do not.  Just this morning (as you slept) every stone spoke in a vibratory roar so loud, the sea responded in kind. Spruce, bark-beetled and…