Tricia Elliott

Gravity Even clouds look different, somehow more and less willow-fur gray like the wolf who crossed the still night road in July, ruff thick and lit  by the stunned gaze of headlights. That freeze frame ministration now slips between fingers …

Chewing The shed shudders against teeth  the color of marigolds. Calling card quills  dropped near the snipped wiring roll like soda straws between fingers. Nearby foil bright as sunlit chrome passes  through bear. Like a shiny cipher it’s read by…

Lit Match Day Beneath the silent nest in a coyote gaze  on a lit match day the neap tide turned, squirrel-quick. It was after that the spruce grouse hummed, calling her chicks after that the caramel moose calves wobbled ridge-ways…

Circulation A nuthatch nests in the old aspen. This morning her striped face pierced the trunk’s stripped and weathered lines with a flash of scattered sunlight. Beak and eye sharp against soft gray, she dropped a curve of dried grass…

Possible Snow melts even at twilight now, marking time like the saw whet’s singular tune. Every face has turned to the silvery rose of night a secret season  spun from slanted sunlight, rivulet braids  and molded leaf.  Every rounding bud,…

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…