this just in on the undercurrent:
a few days ago:
more than 170,000 students boycotting classes in quebec
and 250,000 people taking to the streets
you wanna know what happens when you hike tuition $1625?
this.
momentum
raising of voices
another spring breaking through earth
_______
tugging out tallgrass around five foot sunflowers
wrestle and mulch with bent back
til sunshouldered and sweat-stached
this
fingerdirt
signs of growth
sunsweat
callous-building
plus hummingbird visitation
(wingbeat whir
perched on clothesline a foot above)
is all the afternoon needs to be made of
(something like a popsicle stick bridge
or toothpick structure
minimal materials make mighty possibilities)
_______
one hour into the phone conversation
i am orbitting far
from great lake places
imagining my handwriting
on seed packets in a blue crate
organzied by flowers
herbs
food
mystified at the wonder/power
of progressions
overlays
how timelines rupture
how timelines overlap
we live untouchable story lines
(the accumulation of seeds
commenced 10 years ago when i moved
from a strawbale structure in northeast missouri
to a trailer on a farm on an island in portland
happened to leave them (seeds) in the patio cupboard
of the last house i left
which happened to be the next house you moved into
where you gardenplant this spring
with your current _______
you being some sort of ex but not quite
which isn’t to say we are still lovers
but ‘friend’ is too shallow a vessel hold all that presence/history
and as it goes, most of my relationships are more complicated
than pre-packaged terms allow
which is one of the reasons i refuse to say i love you
all of this a whole mountain of words
for how gold-gild brilliant it is
this overlap
of lo/iving)
_______
popsicle delivery for a sun-hot day:
salted caramel
strawberry basil
lavender lemon
slightly melted during ice-cubed transport
we lick drips off
some we catch
some run rivers down our palms
_______
it was strange
to live in a room with nothing in it
for a month
she says
we of the painter/lost eyesight fathers
we of the sewer/quilter mothers
we of the october birthdays
we of the quiet-in-a-corner-despite-birth-order childhoods
we of trauma of loss
we of the letting go
_______
what it must have been like
the vacating
_______
kate, meet 217
217, meet kate
i mention the paint set
the time capsule
the handwriting
the voice files
hummingbirds
_______
what do you think
aunt or uncle?
217 says
6week puppy in my arms
both
how about uncle
frank?
_______
it’s like ikea
i say
before it got all commercialized
in reference to everything about the film l’argent
by which i think i mean
tidy
efficient
everything in its proper place
_______
1am moon
thinner than paper
goldhaze
half full and horizon-huge
detail collector 