Musee des Augustins
A man, tattooed and shorn, picks a plum from the ground of the garden of the monks. Blows it off, pops it in his mouth. And is mendicant. CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE RECORDING
Dawn chorus with chives
Pad out to the fire, listen for birds and the distant sound of trains, of traffic like water. Pause. Delight in the chives and other things hard to kill. CLICK TO LISTEN TO THE RECORDING
Spring Thaw
Box the crates of rejection letters, and stash them in the drip line. Ball up the sticky notes and stuff them in your cheeks. Shred the divorce papers, the receipts from houses ago. Stop at the top of the stairs by her meaty fist, years since you circled it with your fingers; years, as the…
Screening the rushes
All hell breaking, and a daughter standing. The angry sky twisting in her painterly arms. (Image and audio courtesy of Tara Bryan, www.tarabryan.com) CLICK ON THE RECORDING
Quiet Morning at Ocean Pond
Morning: the rise and fall of tiny chests, the tide in them. The old sun going on and on. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Ready?
Small girl in a clutch of trees scraped knees peeking from a gallumph of rubbers. Her yellow boots big as the world CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Collingwood reverie
The snow a country here. The busy birds. An earnest hand: surrender. But ask the boys and they’ll say it’s a backside smooth as Sunday morning. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Dawn chorus with geese
The birds and the reeds and the morning cows knee-deep in muck. Empty bleachers where the sky used to live. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN
Dawn chorus of crows
The waking hour. Silver light through the trees and a high moan of boxcars dopplering. The house asleep. The baby breathing. Fear at my throat. Or at least loss, for tempus fugit: that old chestnut. Perhaps we could Peter Pan, forever moving west. Or maybe, as the poet said, west is Everywhere. A verb: we…
Durban Natural History Museum
Your voice, swaddled in tweed, and a map of the world where the sun never sets on Mum, not to mention her roses. Her cotton gloves. Her Columbus. These dead birds a siren for the likes of us, hunting Darwin, his shadow growing still. CLICK ON THE RECORDING TO LISTEN