sometimes it is better to not say.

"i was frightened 

by my fearlessness 

to drown in everything"

...

so you changed your number who's calling

If I have gotten to know any river, it would be the river of mud and clay where fish died on its bank every year and we could still wade in ankle-deep and catch crayfish and I almost always fell in but when you are five six seven eight that is okay wet pants are not a problem, I remember crayfish murky between river grass and water spiders we could skip stones forever but I couldn’t really skip mine all of the time just my dad, laughing as his went further, as his skimmed the river tops and the dog my dad’s dog splashed and swam and crawled up the banks even as they crumbled we did that, too, crawled up and down the banks and built forts in the ravine that tumbled down to the river it was always a race to the bottom a race along the edges we caught frogs and played with matches and my uncle would push me on the swings and we’d sit in that big metal cage pretending it was a spaceship pretending we were going to go really far, we were going to fly the hell out of there but in the end, we always came back to the river, it was our center, and I would get my feet wet climbing to a tiny island I found, I would go by myself and I would climb through the reeds and pretend I was on an adventure, pretend I was writing a poem, pretend I was all alone in my own country far away from dad’s who said playing in the ravine alone/without him wasn’t allowed who tried to take away all of the things a river brings, like mud pies and swimming, like new pets for home and birds, like things to take pictures of and talk about, we’d slap sticks on the water and walk against the current up to our waist to feel dangerous and strong but it really wasn’t that deep and the dog was always there, anyway I always thought she’d save me but she was still my dad’s dog so who knows - there were lots of trees on the banks some of them had roots that left land looking for better places to live and then had given up, half way across and the best part about the river about any river is that the water is always moving there is nothing still about it and anyway, later we left grew up in a different city surrounded by water but where definitely most definitely you could not wade in and my dad’s dog died so it seemed unlikely that, after all, that he might ever call us again, now that we were living in a different city with a different river, one that had smoke stacks and blue collars piled on all sides and anyway, all the men around me had pitbulls with chokers and because my dad’s dog was half-pitbull I already knew there wasn’t anything there to be afraid of so at least I had the dogs and that almost seemed like it could have been enough, I could hold them and touch their fur and they seemed nice and they mostly liked me and I had seen pitbulls before so what did I have to be afraid of?

Landslide

We spent the whole morning in here climbing up roots
and pulling breath out, one card trick to another and laying down stone
as we sidestepped stone; here, it is easier to step without thinking without
trying to understand how one rock compares to another
how one step might leave you hanging, holding nothing but uprooted
air in your hands. It’s easier not to think.

Geology never thinks. Geology leaves rocks scattered and then comes back
to take more, to lay down a heavy, tired heat and to turn water
from stone, geology is a language of its own. It can hardly weep
and yet, look at the river go.  How the river turns and looks upon itself,
always moving forward but curving back in final thought, the last twist
of trying to say something other than good bye

If these rocks could speak, the dirt would fall loose the way teeth do in dreams
little white pebbles filling a great black cave the language of geology
dark in the mouth, leaving  just enough space for air to oxidize and yet
not enough space to breathe

The way a secret gets spoken to the trunks of trees all standing in a circle
but goes nowhere
and the wind that turns the leaves is that same wind that carries the spark
and starts the fire. 

in winter, everything sleeps

Tap. Tap. Tap. My foot. The water. There are expectations.
I cannot move from the couch. The window creaks in the winter ice.

There is movement where I am not moving.
Wake up wake up wake up. A river caked in its own weight.

Heat through the gas makes the metal expand. It pops.
I close my eyes tighter and hug my arms around my breasts.

By now the trees are asleep, life support limited to slow supply.
If I breathe slowly, I can feel all three feet of snow on my chest.

There are grey streaks in the black and the white on the ground looks less.
I turn on every light I pass by on the way to the bedroom.  

human geography

Tectonic plates
the tremor, the residual
heat the struggle of two
wanting to move.

Where will they take us, she thinks
there is only so much room to move
so much water to displace and cities
to sink, where will we go and will it stop?

She presses her hand to the floor
in the apartment in the small living room
and imagines she can feel the heat from below
the neighbours breathing, cycling oxygen and carbon dioxide
the blood and mineral stores
just like the core of the earth
small flecks of iron propelling blood
to trap oxygen to push carbon to ensure that breath
continues; that a hand might be warm to the touch
or a cheek, her cheek, as she places it against the wood
floors, listening to hear someone breathe down below

When they make love, she can hear them
bodies grinding against bodies, bones
hot under the pressure, the tremor of
everything that has come before and she thinks
it’s the weight of history that pushes the plates
so they are both loving and wearing away at
the core of what keeps this whole thing together
the whole hot heart of the earth in there
keeping everything together, just waiting
for the day when it can finally let go
let all the plates slide home and all the cities sink,
taking all the lovers with them, a new sea
of oxygen and carbon, the way bones in the ground
keep giving long after extinction. 

dot jot poetry or the things i have thought today

there is a whole universe that i hold between the full moon of my arms reaching together over my head and when my fingers touch each lightly, there is energy; i can feel the roots take place

i fall in love with shapes and curves and it is easy for me to love because it is easy for me to imagine

i love you i love you i love you i love you

i am a tree falling forward i am nearing cement i have rooted my back foot and i will stay in place for years to come

it is okay if i fall out i can get back into form i can 

a mother carries so many things inside of here i understand the name mother nature; the natural mother

as it comes

this great silence of morning is what i cherish the most, the softening of the sky, the ease with which light fulfills expectation, the closest to silence i can get. and though i love the night, we are often at odds. there are many shadows and when the windows are darkened with the exhaustion of having taken so many steps, it makes me worry and i get tired and i get static; i can hardly move. but in the morning there is still a chance, you can see it in the dawning lights of all the other apartments in the back alley - the first cup of coffee being brewed in my kitchen is another first cup of coffee in the kitchen down below across the alley. i can't see the sunrise from my kitchen but i can see the aftermath, the long-reaching streaks of pink and diluted purples; even the chill in the sky is nothing but residue, a calmness to jump from. if i said i wanted to stay here forever, i would be lying because it would turn, as all things do, and the hours come regardless of movement. the earth keeps on spinning so that everything moves, even if i stay still, even if i hold my breath. but i appreciate the mornings, for the idea that all things can be good.