Sparks

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 …

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. …

Irrepressible On a lulled and certain morning, it arrives. A moment steps into the road and takes everything that once was. Empty plans drift while you meet that singular, tufted gaze and every thought is upended…