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

golden, red and silver

i hold out my hands to catch the light, the glint of patches of spotted warmth, the earth spins me tumbleweed and starward, full of forest feet and cityscraped boots, the twirl of candles being blown out of a cake in a bar brimming with glass jars full of smoke, the song of approaching, the wind racing itself through the map of pine needles and orange leaves, the hazy hue of twilight scattering golden flecks across a field, everything slows and glows in november, i tuck myself in, i feel the fireplace in my home pillow itself into every wooden beam, so warm i have to crack the windows – so i can feel the hum of gentle late fall air on my toes and the warmth of my buzzing fire making my cheeks red as i drift off in my little loft; a quiet in the morning, a softness in the afternoon, categorizing what i am thankful for: for so many blades of grass dancing themselves toward the color yellow, for my puppy’s eyes looking at me while i write; nestled brown and wide, for the bumblebee of a city, for my art and my hands to make things, for the leaves in wild wonder, for all my senses feeling around in the dark, trying to make sense of the wind, for my heart, for love that is just up ahead, blowing towards me in golden, red and silver

november

november and the fall is still swimming in color; hazel and gold and copper, unpacking sweaters and thick socks that push past my ankle, halloween lights twinkling, candy wrappers and pumpkin seeds, the way the leaves become a wax paper – a gobo, for all that light to pour through; the trees, a lantern; and me, i am peeking through the branches, reaching with my lens to catch the stream of yellow, i am listening to the buzz of the street as the light tips out of the day at 5pm, i am walking on crunching leaves and patches of rainbow ground, i am watching the wind tuck into the bushes, i am wearing a pointy black hat to work, i am petting my sweet little ball of fluff, i am watching my puppy hop in a kerchief of orange and black, i am singing in the car with the windows down, i am following always those glowing reds, oranges and yellows; letting the night come, letting the midnight twirl of it never scare me, but sit with me, and let me see the stars shine: ever and always there; my love that glows like a beacon; the black sky and my curling fireplace, spiked apple cider and my hands that are remembering what it is to be cold, as i wrap them around my camera, as i tuck them under a blanket again, as all and everything wraps itself up under the sequined eyes of the night sky, warmth, a gift; the light of our silly machines and computers, a gift; the twist of the highway and the silence of a dirt path, the swell of city lights and the curve of coffee in my hand, the flashing of tail lights, the squish of rain on gutters, the glint of spider webs in the light of day, pine needles waving hello, the sapphire shine of the evening, the beat of your heart, a gift