Tricia Elliott

  Rising   Beluga whales bump  to the surface of rising waters,   knocking your grip  from time  passing, nodding with a slow wink  whiter  than any knuckle  that holds your days  together.   Slipping on autumn’s slide they swim…

  Sparks*   The alpine willow’s fire burns close to the ground.   Come autumn, as each blade burns hotter,  a catkin rises like a plume of smoke or a white flag.   Come closer.   Like you, every cell …

  Entangled   A sea nettle glistens at the tideline, like a fragment of ocean   left among the rocks or a resected organ, set apart on a tray.   There is a reason it calls to you   as…

  Steadfast   As summer’s arc bends, pulling its vivid greens from the fading forests   mushrooms appear, rushing across sphagnum like the tide,    whispering secrets in mycelium and spore, rising under skies  dark enough  once more  to hold…

  Rendering   When you thought you had arrived finally   at the clear-eyed acceptance of loss,   a breeze rocks the heavy  fruit, and quivering,   you remain.    But even in fear you are marvelous, bursting with light,…

  Throwing Bones   For so long now you have walked your bones on a knife’s edge,   neither here nor there, imagining a breathless drop to your rocky end   while the support you seek is under your feet…

  Mutualism   The fireweed glows   with evening light.    As we sink against the stamens, you tally summer’s end among the stalks   and trade their fragrance for wintry thoughts that fall like ashes between the blooms.  …

    Beckoning   If a scalpel is pressed just so — at the tendon’s grip  of bone, or between the fascia’s papery webs,  the integrity of a joint or cavity gives way.  The form is released to slide like…

    Recognition    Disentangled you stand —  dripping, breathless,   stunned to see that as you  raged, spinning,   the storm hung each tethered  leap   not with tears, but mirrors — each shining reflection strung like gems or…

  Ease When the meadow moves with bear, wildness leaps within you. It is a heavy yearn.   Sometimes  it seems so close — what you have longed for,  a scent  you can almost  taste on a calm day.  …