amber leaves begin
falling to the forest floor
recalling what was
A Black Skimmer in Flight
The distances we must travel
through time, memory and space.
In flight
wings unfurled
eyes narrowed
she descends again
as the morning fog
lifts
There is nothing more exquisite
than this –
The surface of the water
is deceptively calm
she waits instinctively
for life to stir
underneath
that deep persistent ache, a hunger
that cuts like a knife.
Weary from solitude
and empty of sustenance
she hears a call
a deep barking
a familiar voice
What makes us whole, must we be,
to be complete?
In his bill
a majestic red and black
she can sense
an offering
a minnow
enough for them both
Dark Matter
I know the weight of things
heavier with the knowing
I am the physicist measuring
the depth of the universe
the cosmologist searching
for exploding stars
They believe I might be
the dark matter
that wild energy
that just might hold us together
I remain steady
suspended with hope
as they disintegrate
one by one
The stars in my universe
lighting the darkness inside
An Unshared Happiness
An excerpt from Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion.
McCandless starred and bracketed the paragraph and circled “refuge in nature” in black ink.
Next to, “And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness. And this was most vexing of all,” he noted “happiness only real when shared.”
粥
As I shake water from
the scallions, I look up and see
the both of you
resting on the grass
taking in the sun.
The ginger is firm with tan skin
still a vibrant yellow inside
reduced to thin slivers
fine enough to mix in
fierce enough to stand out.
The scallions paint the bowl
layers of white, waves of deep
and shallow greens,
their scent stings my eyes.
When you wake, the handful
of jasmine rice will be softer
than it used to be, broken
by heat, water, and time.
When you add that squeeze of lime, the
splash of fish sauce, and cast the green
and the yellow carelessly
across that milky white canvas
I’ll be thinking of them
doing the same for me,
sitting, watching me eat.
Willing me, from the top to the bottom
of every blue and white porcelain bowl
to be better, to be stronger.
becoming tabitha 