winter to spring 22/23

we scale past pennsylvania, racing the near-winter sun as it dips and bobs along the crags and cracks of low mountainsides, the alleghany, pittsburgh, a cleave of old metal and rivers, the trees, bare wood skeletons, all scraping and disharmonized; patches of snow lace-tracing the floor of the hillsides; when the first wreaths pop their way into the visual landscape; lights strung, some amount of cheer that tells me the year is about to curtain its way into reds and greens and peel away into some near-present past tense; we see the state wrapping itself in wide open fields, in softly moving cows, in tumbles of old turnstyle grain elevators, wide expanses of trees and all the silent seed secrets they tumble to the ground in so many shapes and whispers – all the courage in their bark to grasp firm to everything holding the ground together, roots or history or some secret knowledge they know we know not ; somewhere the carved hunger of the ancient song ; thankfulness; or a reaching towards something resembling peace, the only day we herald towards this gratitude, all hands, grasping towards cranberry, orange peel, harvest and the fullness of the year, bursting sweet potato leaves, swing swung mid-air mid-afternoon, air capsizing over tiny pebble in the light, stories regaled from times I know not of, laughter that births me, champagne lips and the turn of the fading autumn light through the window, a small page of hellos curtseying to the decay of the year, the fading corpse of something that once ambled and scrambled over covered rocks – the year, like a blank page that never touched even seam of the book, in its entirety ; the crescent moon tucked between two grain silos bracing themselves against the crimson november sunset, the velvet sapphire of the night sky gently pulling itself across the horizon, christmas come to the side of every house like a banner; and December keeps coming; a curtain of bells and lights, the flash of some crag of memories turning itself over; a trove filled with baubles and treasure of only the shineiest kind ; the shine glows from every parking lot shopping cart, every mute industrial light, every filament of flourescent candy cane and the deft jangle of some tune carried on the wind, reverberating backwards, recognizable in essence, but not in words

2022 

Gandalf’s fireworks opening the new year, a splendor of raucous brother laughter, january dipping in and out of brushstrokes, bags of popcorn, laptop splayed out on the floor, the kelsey theatre draped in piles of snow, to the parking lot of unos, cold shooting hands, music and fragments of writing; to the first snap of spring crackling out of the air, march, bunkering underground, finding new ways, to the spring pulling itself out of every corner, my eyes ablaze with flower buds, planting incessantly, ripping up chunks of dirt and creating new gardens; to a birthday party in the gazebo, dancing around a fire and glowing in the embers; the ocean, the blue green sky; books upon books, movies upon movies, shooting, editing, sweating in the summer sun; sarah’s bridal shower brimming with teacups and floral patterns, to legal conversations, to california, squealing about and laughing at every oceanside bar, every nightly jackbox game, flying in the car down to mexico, on the beach all night talking while the moon rose above us, the wafting smells and the sight of fresh tortillas being flipped; to getting stuck crossing the border with taylor, to crabgate, to home, parties on the lawn, cutting dan’s covid hair off, bulbous plants and marigolds sprouting up like weeds and brussel sprouts and beets, laying on the grass in front of the tiny house every night, synchronicity and the oblong shine of the internet; to the swell of the summer, chlorinated afternoons and twilight plantings, skittering down the canal ; to a full and bustling september, full of golden light and the coolness of the air mixing with the heat – georgia and the soft swell of emlyn’s belly, crafting and laughing and listening about ecology, stepping gently and quietly through the appalachian trail trailhead, pointing out mushrooms and critters; exploring random towns, a glorious little lunch outside atlanta, to athens, to a tiny zoo, margaritas in the last glow of the light, laughing and watching videos of insects on youtube; to sarah’s wedding, frolicking in sunflowers with lena, dancing with my oldest of friends in the dim glowing light of the stone barn, tears streaming down my face openly and the most sublime of beet and olive oil ice cream soups, exploring tarrytown and sleepy hollow with my mom, the majestic stucco walls, candelabras and painted starry ceilings of the lyndhurst estate, upstate to new paltz to hike the labyrinth, pulling myself through the lemon squeeze, the delicate blue cascade of the catskills splayed out all around; to violet chrysanthemums, the thrum of the september sky against the night horizon; to scaling the catskills to peter’s farm, walking around the lake in silence, drinking 200 year old whiskey, riding around on the atv’s with dan, the air whipping our faces the rock forms; the waves of long grass; the sprinkled stone fences all about us, coming home through redhook, tracing my way back home, to october, fanned out like a parade of blisteringly bright colored leaves, so many shoots, so many colors, pumpkin carving and a little witch’s hat; the renn faire and symphonies and six flags; to the black box; to nashville and singing our lungs out in little bars, dancing under a giant neon guitar, crying watching bryan and kristen twirling on the shiny black stage of a dueling piano bar, costumes and laughter and games; home to trick or treating, to the blaze of an orange-light-dotted black night, running and laughing and jumping, fistfuls of shiny plastic treasure candy; to november, plodding and grey and tweets and a dash of warm air; shooting and leaves falling and tucking in; building fires, stacking wood; to pittsburgh, the swarm of thanksgiving day marathon runners outside the hotel window; reading while splashes of pennsylvania flew past my window, the spring of water at bedford springs, the laughter of children; the hum of a retirement home in lancaster; to home, to the brothers, to december, a twinkling of christmas lights dotting every street corner and every chilled window pane; dancing in brooklyn and diner food at 1am, to laughing in bryan’s kitchen, christmas light dotted photos, to christmas eve and the warm glow of presents and cookies, oatmilk eggnog and joy, washington crossing the delaware, cold chill and the warmth of burning logs and piping car heat, to new year’s eve prank calls and giggles, games and puzzles, and finally, the new year, ablaze in a gasp of new lungs, fresh air; golden swarm of new days on a calendar, the hum of a new number, the ornamentation of months, time trickling, a splash of cool water; so much to see, to read, to hear, to create, to write, to remember, to fill, breaths to breathe and the fervent and everlasting walk towards meeting yourself in the present moment 

—

by february the road has glazed itself to a fine powder, the press of the mountains upon my skin slides across the tectonic plate of my shoulder blades; and here, crustrateous fern, glowing rockface adorned in moss; frozen lake horizon, a splash of white upon a crust of edgeless white and blue; the fierceness of a cold sky blazing across the edge of the mountains; the hills in sloping paths, the pressed and layed rocks, mere granite, turned wall; crushed bone of years and the grumbling of gravestones on top of the craggy yellow meadow, all quiet, all seeing, a hush of february sitting inside the forest path, tiptoeing across patches of ice; to the crush of frigid airlessness, the watery iced depths we dance around; the blaze of fire inside a gleaming mantel, encrusted with garb and glittering paraphernalia, the gargantuan hull of the house ready to set sail for the futurepast at any moment, drop anchor wherever we can imagine; tufts of scotch and goblets of cocktails; the crunch of snow and ice under your feet, the glide and hum of a bobcat climbing up the catskills, gathering speed; and all the other days of february, a twirled blur, a book bottled; candle filled; tea pummeled string of days curled under blankets, driving a new car off the lot, seeing you, a shot of bright light straight through my ribcage, pulsing under every scrap of fabric that covers my body, the overwhelming urge to plow across all the aisles of seats and press myself into the seat next to you, grab your hand and never let it go – 

the soft chill of march snow, the wind whipped gaze out the window; perching on the rivulets of air, never quite landing on the ground ; the hush of bare branches, the ageless winter stretching into its countless week, the trill of words against a skull, the thick precipice of a book in hand, the satin bliss of bed, crocuses pulling themselves out of the cracked soil, the winter, a tumbled dream placing itself on the shelf, fluorescent bulbs and cups of tea, so many crisp pages to turn, rocketfire brain; angles of the sun cracking through pavement, tiny fissures in bark, in concrete, in asphalt, no fault of our own, to trace the path down every solemn road, every cragged avenue, gin and tonics at the yardley inn, the river thawing, the soft delicate, brown maeve cradled in my legs, the rattle of nj transit down the clickety clack tracks, wuthering heights and the dinky, tiptapped texts and doggie ears, the cradle and hum of waiting rooms, audition rooms, paneled wood floors and my voice echoing across them, the pianist sitting politely as i do not sing but rather scratch the cornea of my emotions, the eye doctor plucking my eyes with puffs of air, the dentist scraping my teeth against the winter sky, parking lots and roads and seeds, tucked seeds, each a prayer, each a belonging, each a hope; watering and waiting and watching each trembling leaf trailing and traipsing its way towards the sky, oscar night tucked on the couch with maeve, presence, thawing

april popped, pressed, pearled up from the ashes of smoke soil, the bursting panoply of color and texture, the world made new; julia and josh dancing at the end of a dock, racing the bramble of catskill stone up the mountain, the finely tuned aperture of slate black in a bar in delhi, the curvature of cocktails, of whiskey tastings, of laying on the grass in front of the lake and listening to time stop; an endless moment suspended in the breath of fresh sunlight, racing towards some spectacle of a new season i did not remember that i deserved; crackle laughter and branch crunch, the softest green that peeks its shining eyes blazing in the newness; making meals and reading in the pink room; to home to seeds to soil to planting to seeing every white blossom holding itself with its own purposeful repose, auditions and ballets and racing across towns and tiptoeing into waiting rooms and letting the blossoms lead the way down every curved alleyway, every glowing street corner; to wigs and singing in brooklyn at 2am, to illinois, dancing past the arch, carrying my grandmother’s casket, the sunset streaks pulling themselves over bellevue, dan pulling me down to the dock to look at it, some amount of trauma tucked into every blade of grass, here all of our names clink against one another awkwardly, old faces staring blankly through time, some amount of racing myself back to this moment that pulls itself through some tunnel in my body, some amount of story touching itself at the beginning and end, my grandmother’s sea glass, the aching memory of a beach in connecticut, some tree planted in the backyard thirty-five years ago for the baby before me, now towering strong, blocking out light, casting leaf shadows ; my aunts my uncles, the questions that sit between us like solid marble, grinding away at it with a toothpick, and there he is, my brother, and there he is, he is holding me, laughing, telling me things, the names of his children i did not know existed, sharing a photo, some grainy family of 5 i do not recognize, here we are, eating the chicken and waffles, asking about the highways, talking about policy, picking out wine in a walgreens in illinois, making a joke about the coppola wine, driving around in circles to find a target, crying about some afternoon 17 years ago, letting it fall into the table, slip itself into the groove of this wood and remain there, and here is my father on his knees weeping at my grandmother’s casket, and here my brother and i touch the coffin before it is plunged into the ground, and here we are playing charades, acting out some terrible movie, humming the theme to jaws, and here we are, a log cabin, and here we are, the mystery of time and tragedy somehow off duty for a brief moment, stories have fled somewhere else for a moment, and somehow we are here for this moment, unlatched from some groove in spacetime, tied only to the somehow real molecules of some wooden chamber, a log cabin, a thirty-five year old tree, some story we all grow in to, and up and out of – to home, to some chunk of magnifence pulled out of time for an everlasting weekend – everyone here, the flowers ablaze, the endless nights, the rattling laughter, the happy tears streaming down my face, the twirl of first dance, placing white flowers in kristen’s hair, buttoning a soft line of white satin buttons up her back, holding emlyn’s baby and weeping on the dance floor, korean barbeque and ice cream and dancing along the streets and independance hall and sake and all of the laughter that a body can contain – to may ; the dappled curtain of light, folding and unfolding, the restlessness of rain pushing through every root and carpet of asphalt ; on set, cameras swinging on dollies and lights bouncing off marble and stainless steel ; to tarantula tequila and cigars under the moon, to a backyard garden in brooklyn traced with dancing lights; to swimming in the eyes of flowers, the swarm of everything pressing towards green, to my heart, somehow still pumping blood, somehow still beating; endlessly

july + august + september 22

the july air so thick, it pulses ; an ocean of atmosphere ; the light so powerful it shapes everything on the landscape, carves into the swells and tucks of branches, slides across the cement of a city street; a conveyor belt of invisible architecture that changes the shape of the streets, their reflections and their shadows, as it glances and winks through the intertwined fingers of the city ; the veins of vines swarm up to the sky, swimming vertically and heaving towards the blue, dollops of red bouncing off the trellis, a whole tomato in my hand, full of sun and full of rain ; a tumult of water, pouring into roots, into bare naked soil ; furnishing the grass with blossoms and the eyes of flowers; the whorling array of fireflies ; my back to the ground, body to the sky, my eyes a small set of gazings, staring at the celestial weavings of some unspeakable secret symphony we are somehow allowed to witness ; the golden glow of the moon ; lily hands and sunflower swell; pink sky horizon and a summer of dappled clouds ; of yarrow and zinnia, water and black soil, golden hour and amber evening ; so that by 6pm, the forest is a veritable series of vaulted halls to be entered and exited at any given step; the womb of bouncing light, a forest of pitter-pattering and plumage of green , a bird alight

—

august peeks over the sidelong rubber hills of san diego, the crest of a country cleaving its way into the pacific, blue tucked gently next to blue, all along the horizon; the squirm of red flowers against a pale white garage; softly dancing, long-limbed palm leaves; soundscape of airplanes scraping the sky and the ever-swarming buzz of metal chunking down the california coastline ; the slow trace of a set of white sails against the body of soft waves ; everything baked, everything golden – a wide appendage of light barrels through the air, a cliff weaving itself ; mexico pulls concrete out of the desert, turquoise paint next to orange, slabs of metal and oblong roads criss crossing one another, a delicate embroidery of asphalt and dry cliff faces – an oceanic set of arms, pulling everything into its embrace; tijuana, pouches and ice creams for sale at the border, the pearl of a fossil, of dinosaur bones, of brother laughter, of the spray of the sea, chunks of origin and salt; and all the sea seeing

purple-eyed and wide breath of sky, august gave the stars to the horizon, tapped twice on the garden hose and flooded the ground / september she is pulling yellow towards every brambled root and tapped furnace of trunk ; the blue ridge mountains sit, stewing, perching, pressing themselves against the sky, pulsing vivid black in the night, giant leaves adorning themselves against the wooden porch, the wind shaking these giant rooted ones, ancient and full of the blood of this country, wild in their cherokee bark, a song i strain to hear in the leaves, honored i am, to be a part of this moment, to press my hand to your belly, to let all the moments that have led to this moment lay next to one another and press their eyes into mine, seeing now what you can only see in hindsight ; there is no word that can trace itself to this moment, it is wider than definition, farther than seeing,
all the roads lead past the sassafras, the wild grapes hung silently in the mist, the orb weaver, the spider cling, the fresh brocade of fungus popping along the appalachian trail, copper and sapphire and cherry red, the pinches of autumn pulling themselves across the leaves like so many mosaics and mazes; a splay of houseplants, the things that feel like you, your handwriting, your artwork, a poster of algae surrounded by stamps, a geological map splayed across the wall, roasted veggies and walking feet, the wooden bridges of a local zoo, the thousand tiny questions

—

tarrytown and sleepy hollow, new words sliding through my brain, new facades, bookstore chimes and splays of black and white photographs in a perched white tub, pearls draping from the wall in shimmering cascade, lyndhurst mansion and plastic painted to look like wood, gothic, vaulted ceilings, swollen shapes pointing in sharp angles and edges, strawberry pink walls and gold-flecked hexagonal shapes, gaping marble sink and robin’s egg starry sky; lyndon trees and the wash of cemetery grey stone, headless horsemen galloping through the frosty glen; midnight whispers on the wind and the way a story takes hold in the mind, roots deep, burrows soft and shapely; blue hill on stone barns, the glow of candlelight, of late summer sunflowers, muddled cocktails, you in your beauty, spinning round in white, hair in a bun with white flowers tracing the edges, veil floating gently down the aisle with you, the blaze of my first kiss following me around all evening like a shotgun; pearlescent light dancing across stone, your grace, our growth, something frameable, something framed; to the side of a mountainface, the craggy slip and slide of rock against rock, stone presence pressing itself against the first murmur of autumn dotting the hillside; new paltz and silent rock pathways carving themselves out of jaggedness and blunt shapeliness; to the gasp of pulling yourself out of rock, to the final peak, to the grasp of the final rock, to the splay of the hudson valley, the wide gazing mountainrange, all that air, all that horizon, the peaking sunset sprinkling light and color as far as it can

—

golden thread of the endless angle of september, tipping like a wide eyed goblet, a spool of long rimmed yellows and oranges; the longing pool of a measuring cup dosing out the perfect array of wind and light ; when you lean your heart up against the wind, the purpose of pine, the edges of evergreen, the spindled webs and branches of something garganuan, ancient, full of molten sap, moss covered, bulging roots and prehistoric catskill ferms plucking themselves out of untouched soil ; when you lean your heart up against the wind; is it the age or the sound of the air that whistles back ; is it the curved angle of time disappearing in the treeline ; the berth of a mountainside cleaving to the point on the horizon where years vanish; generationless and nameless on the grace of a hillside, grass still september green splaying across the stretch from the porch to the lake, and a thousand tiny bursts of laughter echoing ageless on the flames of blades in the mid-afterrnoon sun; the illumination of the path ; cherry wide and burgandy flecked / the long thin band of air that stretches between the colors approaching and the colors peeling back, the twist and burnish of the woods, the pale cheek of the sky; the swell of what comes to sit with you in the night, to press down on your angling ribcage 

everything alive, especially the air

to hold firm the brilliant current of a new day ; the gargantuan, wide breath of a crocus piercing grey with indigo ; the elegant wind of an air that begins to stir with scent, the always promise of a new season

there is a radiant hum that accompanies the first spring air to blow through a midnight window, something unearthed in the frozen smells unfurling themselves into the body of the atmosphere, the seamless gaze of the moon upon the dip and swell of the night-clouds ; and in the morning, the buds approaching the sky like small rockets about to burst, the grass tiptoeing towards green, golden eyelids of dotted, tiny flowers and the palest green you have ever placed a hand upon; the swarm of any-something, bursting out of any sidewalk clump of concrete, reaching towards the chandelier of light in the sky; from the rooted blackness ; the silent fingers of small, unfathomable creations, transformers of star-light; freckled mulch and bundled birch, wild cabbage in the wet soil, ferns in pre-historic spiral rolling towards the atmosphere

then comes the rotor of the train ; purple scraping sounds along the highway of birdsong, the two congruous, a humming complement ; by late april, the whole of the atmosphere is a body now, full of song and scent, a fullness of which your body moves through, in tandem ; everything alive, especially the air ; especially the eyes of berries, the plumb of bird tufts, the owl hoot which speaks to the train honk, the beebuzz of car tires bursting to some destination ; by late april the tendrils have pulled their limbs towards the sky ; curled out towards luminous light green, the most tender wish of chlorophyll ; and as every color pulls itself into existence again, from some woven pallette our eyes know how to recognize, the air too, breathes itself awake, and begins to dance, in hum and in longing

march

when march comes, to any arrangement of sky, the peeking chins of the clouds somehow begin to hum a new song; again today the electrical currents will swell through the elaborate hair of wires in all our buildings, all of the architecture of the things we build a testament to things made manifest; the orchestration of cars: some buzzing panoply of organs and cellos harmonizing at a green light – march comes to any street sign, to any patch of concrete, to any legowall of bricks; there is always a new world ; on any curved streetcorner, at any intersection of white paint and asphalt, at any streetlamp, glowing with that small ocean of electricity; buds flash a thousand tiny eyes, and a thousand tiny eyes look back at them, the world splays hands out for reaching, and we, in tiny everymoments – reach back

tapping

some day mid-february some tangle of twined branches will start twisting their spines towards the maple syrup inside their precious wooden bones; some channel of tunneled bloodhoney will start tiptoeing its way up through the shaft of illuminated crevices inside a silent trunk ;; the soft, tiny, scraping, miniature works of nature that are invisibly tapping their little elf’s hammers and nails, waking up, waking up, crawling into the furled curvature of the geometry of a bud – tightly tucking its head against the firm radiance of the tender map of twigs; nothing so sacred as rebirth, as the pale green peeking against its brown bretheren, the hum of bird calls singing an ancient song to one another, the dark syrup will stream itself vertically, the transformation of temperature working in tandem, to forge some brilliant rocketship heading north, root-liquid doused in sugar – and once a hole is gently formed, simply, to let it pour out – a river of black sweetness; some wild-glowing everything we get to witness; the street glazed in rainglow and reflective light show, the woven melody of the night, the folded teapcup in my hand, the warm bellow of some bright ocular momentum spilling enough light to read by, the firm grace of an illuminated machine, letting me see with electrical wizardry, the scrawled architecture of words pressed by some black river of ink-sap that swam itself through the geared calligraphy of a printer; translated somehow by the carousels of language in my brain ;; each letter an artwork, a form in and of itself, a carved opening, a tapping, a tunnel of sweet ink traveling vertically in everything

february

snow glint of silver sun and bundled roadsides caked in white blankets and couch cushions of snow, bumbled pale igloos at every curbside, chunks of gently gliding iceswans peeling slowly down the waterways, the glimmer of street-ice as it reflects the purple, indigo, violetblue of the twirling sky, my fingers tap and click on a little keyboard, trace themselves over my camera, bask in the radiant glow in front of a fire; we pass the mid-winter mark, the uptilt of the earth passing ever closer to rebirth, the sunlight on the snow bounces through the atmosphere, a little patter of warm rain wakes the morning, hums safely on a curtain of white, i keep my eyes full of dawn

the meeting place

where the wind meets the light, i’ll sit and watch the strummed fingers of a few silent symphonies play in basking whisper; the window, a soft catchment for slits of silted cloud brine that tilt through it; the edges of cabinets and lampshades; the warm color of paint as it touches another hue, twisting translucent as it becomes another color in the meeting place, curls down the cracks of a canvas , the woven fibers of an empty slate, a little brush, a pool of water, a glazing set of shapes, forming in relation to one another, perching upon the eyeglass of the destination of becoming , and the blissful current of a brushstroke, billowing this way and that against the pattering hum of a stretched frame — winter taps gently on the windowpane, burrows my limbs in blankets and cradles me in a tiny digital cocoon; snow tap dances around street lights, blazing on asphalt like white fire and pale, pastel lava – glittering, a frozen pond of street, a haze of 12 degrees that swims in the atmosphere, one tiny flapping wing at a time , the peaceful slowing electron buzz of a january breeze, inside the tucked splendor of electric lights and golden amperage; when all the sky bleeds grey and white, we can slip into the kaleidoscope of hues that hover in the every empty canvas, waiting to be doused with color

2021

no way to know how to write about this year – but perhaps i can remember a few things – like bernie in those mittens sitting cross-legged in a black folding chair, january 6th, working on a puzzle all day and listening to the news out of one ear, writing and writing and listening and finding, cutting hearts out of paper for valentine’s day, knee-deep in the pandemic, painting in my little guache journal, making little videos, snow and tromping through the white to take photos, road-trip to the south, the feeling of sun on my legs again, savannah and charleston and florida and the car and the whizzing of the highway and the way things turn green as you tramp down the longitude, finding out my book would be published, falling onto the floor of the bathroom and just screaminglaughing on the tile, making my garden and building my deck and getting vaccinated and walking in to shops with doors that chime and seeing people smile at you with no mask on and hugging friends and watching your brother lift your mother high into the air and laughing, asbury park for my birthday and running around and dousing dan in the ocean at midnight and book number two news, summer lightning bugs and pool swimming and riding my bike and and painting and making things for my house and zooming along the sun, to bryan getting engaged and the glow of the evening, to dc, pressing our bodies against the washington monument and buzzing about the mall on scooters, taking photographs and sweltering in the heat, to california and tapping my feet against the rocks, inhaling food and laughing, fireball whiskey and dancing to billy joel in the kitchen, back to rehearsals for the first time in so long, laying about in an arboretum, plucking the grass and staring at the burbles of a little stream, listening to shakespeare, the joy of those performances, lines of led lights lacing along the dirt and filling a little willow tree with a purple glow, scurrying with my feet over a tiny wooden bridge, hearing laughter in all parts of the woods, choreographing a little dance, eating thai food sitting in a patch of weeds, back to music mountain theatre, to dancing and singing and fishnets and big curtains and wide open stage, to leaves filling the street and scarecrows and pointy black hats and cider, to apple picking and to thanksgiving in philly, bryan proposing back to kristen, wooshing through the christmas season, gaining two new sisters, so much joy with my brothers this year, so much silliness and so much laughter, to music and movies and acting and photos and painting and writing and dancing, to websites and apps and phones and laptops and screens, to hope and travel and creation and love, and at the end of this wild year, to the sublime glow of the sky as it meets itself at all parts of itself, grabbing the ever-present future with your teeth and letting its citrus fizz burst into newness, the new year as a snow covered morning, no tip-toed footprints in the white yet, the juice of rebirth we all get to walk into, the ritual of starting over, arbitrarily lapped onto a calendar we invented, but still, the meaning is still baked into the everything of it all, and the meaning makes the moment, and the moment is yours to tap out like metronome, to draw a shape in the fog in on the window, to be born again and again, in the newness of the road silken with softly fallen rain, shining with the graceful gleam it creates, with the the little drops of water that form dancing little spheres, humming a little love song to the new year – good morning, good morning

our star

by the shadow of the shortest day, when the sun tucks under the winged leaf of the one-armed sky, when the little lantern of your boldly tapping blood keeps warmth within your skin, when the firm cypress branch tucks its needles in to the swan-stepped curve of the ever-cloud of the now-winter horizon, if you cup your ear to the body of the wind – one day, after all the silence, the carols will be there again – after the pandemic, you will stand inside of the sound of singing again, of ribbon wrapping around fingers, forming the unmistakable shape of a bow, which in its decorative flourish, means something resembling home – which means something that can hold things together – people will crowd around you again, bustling and bristling and humming old christmas songs and bells tolling and smoke rising out of manhole covers and dustings of cream and icing, swirls of spruce and fir, baking thin slices of orange and melting beeswax over a fire, hanging pine cones and pressing cookie dough into molds, letting the smells fill air; and on this day, the longest night, where the darkness comes to swarm the sky with stars, the night sky will pull the cloak of firm blackness around us all, and let us begin again, let us twist ever so gently on the axis of the earth – to tilt back towards the light, the horizon pressing against the kiss of the sun, the graceful star that lets us see anything at all – grateful i am, to press close to the longest night, and wake ever closer to the sun, in the morning

in so many words

cotton witch brick buildings and feet tap dancing to stay warm, and little bundles of my own skin pressed against each other to make heat and cascading little pixels that make my pillow, little evergreen eyes i’ve got – to peer, to peek, to seek through the wind, the tiptoe of little red berries that pop in the grey, angled cobblestone, the angled spells of branches and brambles, of dollops of christmas popping up everywhere in my field of vision, curtains of lights and satin, some smell of cinnamon and the curvature of light cracking through the the oblong architecture of things that break the horizon – the strands of telephone pole wire hair that gather cold sun, the stretching wizardry of buildings spiraling towards the ever grey skey, little timeline i am bumbling around in – somewhere between mars and massachusetts, a calm history of light that makes up my life, a swelling swarm of air that dispensed somewhere between my lungs and the street, park avenue or a pine cone or two, some magic hat of blood that i am, just swimming through a planet made of rock and bone – but liquid too – oceanic waves of wind – and streetlamps and busy feet and wrought iron gates and steel and the sound of jingle bells tingling in your spine and all that seeing – which in so many words, is just swimming