In the later afternoon, it moved: an elephant grinding its way through the unnecessary forest.  Its strong back rippled.  I followed it from tree to tree.  It kept a steady course west as the afternoon light paled.  

The sun finally shattered into stars when it halted on the edge of a cliff.  Clouds bowled below us in the lower peaks.  It settled on its haunches, moss ruffling in the evening breeze.  It did not move again.

photo via

Can this be a waterfall that only I have seen?  

Can my eyes have one thing that is only theirs?

But the ants have seen it.  Beetles and deers have.

Humans, too, are not rare creatures.  So the sense of exploration

is blown along, dusty with kicked feet, rutted trails.  

But has anyone seen that water drop, that splatter?

I am truly the only one to see this moment, this path of falls;

the water will never be twice the same;

  (my possession grasps at straws).

Turning away.

My eyes, seeing it again; but I flow on.

Not twice.  Already I have found ten new things

that maybe I have only beheld with my 

fierce eyes.

photo via

The mountains set, and what I mean is they went out, slowly.  They dimmed behind themselves, like a dancing crowd following a holy thought.  I watched with my pack next to me, across the lake perched halfway down the face.  The boulders around me turned over and went to sleep.  The sky that had seemed depthless in the blue day closed in hollowly.  I could hear the muffled sound of my movements.  I was in a closet and not the open air, and my body panicked.  

I snatched my pack from a sleeping rock and tore down the mountainside.  Rivers of stones scattered down ahead of me; the blood pounded in my ears.  In the blackness, my only sense was gravity.  The descent was miles long; I tumbled and felt the wetness of blood in my hair.

Water.  I huddled on the shore, trembling.

photo via

We sloshed around the shallows of the lake, feet sticking, reeds slapping our mouths.  He got to the log before me, and I sat down.  He stood.  The water rippled, and the damp air clung with gnats.

A noise like a thousand bees dying collapsed behind us.  Our tree was felled.  Its fresh greenery would not brush our cheeks again.  The salamanders would find a separate place to drink, nearer to the ground, drying soon without fog seeping into their skin.  

"They could come here," he said without turning.

I shook my head.  "You live your whole life in a redwood, as a salamander.  How would you learn how to swim?"

"Organisms are surprisingly resilient, I've found."  He turned to me.  "We find our life where we need to."

He slung the climbing rope over his shoulder and we parted the reeds slowly.  

photo via

"How do you be brave?"  Ancient eyes looked up at me, and I could not answer.

His small question sent me spiraling into this mission.  I went to the back porch, laced up my boots, and walked down the road.  

Our town lay in a red wasteland, purple when the sun was setting.  Films lit up the sides of buildings most nights. Black and white and crackly.  We gathered silently in clouds of smoke to watch the old movements play out over and over again.  The man in charge had found them in the shed of a dead woman's yard and brought them out when the nights grew warm.  A dim form of happiness, but that's what we had.

The ground curled up around me as I lay awake.  I was alone with the howling dogs and the dust.  My stomach clenched with fear and my eyes plastered open.  "How do you be brave?"  

I was not a man who spent time with courage.  I kept my head down when children disappeared and the man in charge called for volunteers to search the wilderness.  Rats kept at my heels and drove me home to my small cabin at the edge of town.  I remained there.  Alone when the last of my family settled into the ground.  

The howling abruptly silenced, and the greyness began to rise.  A boy with blue eyes lapped to the edge of my mind.  His sister had gone into the red sands earlier that year, chasing a vision as they sometimes do.  I had seen her go past my window, struck with speed and beyond-sight.  I rushed out, but she had vanished.  If I had called to her, said some word, she could have heard and turned back.  But silence was my curse.  I could not help her.  

Two days ago, her brother had rushed away.  It was something that affected them, some light or being they saw that no one else could.  It had a sound, a persuasion, and the swiftness that carried their feet away was unnatural. But the blue-eyed boy was not carried away.  He went into the wilderness to search for his sister.  

"How do you be brave?" I stood up, brushed off a salamander curled around my ankle, and silently went on my way.

photo via

The ravine was full of light today.  The houses on either side sighed and settled.  A boy ran through here like a wind today, and the summer trailed like gloaming on his heels.  The gravel path felt the imprint of his shoed feet, racing monsters back home in the dead of day.

"Hey," the ravine shouted echoes into the sleepy town.  "I am HERE," the boy cried.  And he was.

Two shadows danced together in the draping of the terrible light.  One was his, grand and dusty.  One was mine, small and looking up.  

Across the town, in mirrored room etched "Soda Fountain," he looked at the calendar on the wall.  June 6, 2012.  He looked at his wrist watch and felt his heart beat slowly, saw the second hand of the watch moving moving with no speed at all, saw the calendar frozen there with its one day seeming forever, the sun nailed to the sky with no motion toward sunset whatever.


Shadows gliding in the water that grows in the middle of the ravine, the middle of the place where standing on the edge means racing smack in the middle of fear.  With golden summer kissing our foreheads.  A blessing.  A commendation.  A mint stick in our bones.

In Memory of Ray Bradbury.


photo via

I woke up this morning in a best-selling first person narrative.  Yesterday I had gone through my routines at a normal reader's pace, fast and slow, picking up and setting down.  Nothing off-putting, but not exactly moving stuff. Nothing grand that even I can remember--definitely brushed my teeth, went to work, and, I probably had a coffee or two.  But today the rising action picked right up: Complications arose.  

My legs ran right off themselves, my mind swirled with speed-read words as my story was devoured.  Though my smile was plastered on, I couldn't help feeling that the readers were enjoying the whole thing much more than I was. I'm being vague, I realize.  Apparently I'm under a tight contract by the publisher--can't give anything away.  I do apologize.

I can say, that I felt like this tree that had been growing at a steady, unremarkable pace, alone on a field, but quite content.  Plenty of visitors, a good balance of sunshine and rain.  But then a tornado swept sideways right through my growing place.  Feeling a little windblown, a little out of breath and naked.  Ok, it's an adjustment, the tree thinks to itself. I can deal with this hair style change.  Just let me have it for a bit and I'll get used to it.

Everyone has an opinion on your life all of the sudden, when you're a character in a best seller.  I like hearing about the "foreshadowing" and predictions for what's coming next.  But it's honestly freaking me out.  Everyone else is more ready for this than I am for tomorrow.  And they're speeding right along.

photo via

Darkness and then light.

I wasn't even looking, in the dead suburban night, and I found a falling star.  Tears wet my face--my spirit, raw and restless, my mouth agape.  I personalize everything: this meteorite belonged to me.  No one else could have seen it, I reasoned.  I felt the black sky tear open as if the star had broken the sound barrier--a heavy, sudden rumbling.  Only, the night was quiet, and only I had been torn open, lying ragged in a metal chair.

The next day, the golden light hit the tall, side-of-the-road weeds.  I drove by a fleet of nervous brown birds, feeding in the ditch, scattering low from weed to weed.  Then, one flew heedlessly into my back tire.  In my mirror, I saw it fall and lay still.  A small red rip in the fabric of the morning.

The fish that don't have eyes because they live in the darkest depths of the ocean.  That darkness and light and not mutually exclusive.  That the human eye can find form in shadows and light alternately, like the gaps between the trees, shining like glowing trunks.

photo via

I see your head, bobbing

in the waves, a length 

away from mine; You

stare silently, breathing

water, but bubbles, in your

mouth.

We are in deep water,

where the ocean is a heavy

allure beneath us, our 

limbs suspended, unsure;

You plaster your bangs

back.

I suddenly feel a smile

light up my eyes at you;

how close we are, and 

you are still quietly

bobbing.

In our moment, the vision

pulls back, and there are

1 million people hanging

in the waves around us,

looking at each other,

silently.

photo via

I always imagined standing on clouds, how solid and strange it would be, like Mary Poppins.  

"Clouds are made of condensed water vapor," my droning science teachers always said. 

My hand would shoot up.  "But has anyone ever tried to stand on one, just to see?"

Science teachers were consistently the best eye-rollers of all humankind.  "Darling, you would fall right through one.  You can't stand on steam.  We fly through them in planes every day."  The same answers, always: I crossed my arms and refused to believe.

So, I graduated from high school, got my hot air ballooner's license, and took to the skies.  To spite all my past advisors.  

I climbed into the basket, pulled the cords, and rose into a cloudless sky.  Then I waited, dangling in my bright red balloon, waiting for the sky to push the clouds to me.  I was soon rewarded with a mountain fast approaching from the east.  The wind blew brisk and thin upon my gleeful face.  My moment had finally come.

Swinging my leg over the side, I watched the highest peak cresting towards me.  And then I stepped out.  And fell 10,000 feet into the sea.

music.

photo via.

Today, I needed a tree.

So then, I was walking, hands not-so-free at my sides, around a lake.  The sky was rotating from orange to blue.  Around one bend, and the water breathed cool on me.  Around another bend, and the heat from the brush coughed warm.  My words were tumbling out, trying to find their order.  The dusky air was, too, trying to find its scent for the evening--jasmine, or sewage--as if one wasn't terrible.

And there weren't any trees around me, well there were, but no trees.  I needed a giant.  I needed an ancient.

I came back around.  The night was turning in, the birds trilling; and I looked at the mountain, a small one, but the highest in the city.  My feet rooted into the pavement and steadied.  A massive redwood suddenly sprouted on top of the bald mountain, pushing the sky out of its way.

I paused, for one, two, three to watch, then uprooted and went on my way.

sustenence

full, which was long ago bread, which was long ago

flour, which was long ago fussed up wheat heads, which 

was long ago bobbing back and forth, rolling in those

amber waves of--

I have these thoughts, perched up on my outpost, glancing at the great full world with an obliging nod,

and a knowing smile.

photo via.

"Hand.  Hand.  Hand! Hold my hand."

"I have no idea where we're going."

"You've always wanted to fly."  That twinkling smile, only in the eyes.

I never thought that if one were to fly, it would be quite as uncomfortable as the sensation I am now experiencing.  Your legs just kind of dangle there, helpless to move you.  It doesn't feel like swimming at all, except for the wind is tossing you around like heavy surf on the beach.  I feel crushed and thrashed, and my ears are totally popped.  You would think there wouldn't be a shortage of air because you're floating in it, but really, who wants a glass of water when they're drowning?  I could do with a glass of water about now.  The wind is stinging my eyes, tears streaming down my face.  I reach to swipe them away.

"Hand.  Hand.  Hand! Hold my hand."

photo via

"How weird it is that there is earth that no one has ever seen?"

"How weird is it that we are under the earth, and breathing?"

"How strange, that every person meandering above our heads contains caverns that no one has ever seen."

"And they're all as beautiful as this, and as mystifying.  Air pockets, frozen bubbles of self--"

We stood, silently, our breath caught in our throats.

photo via

"Well that is my happy scene for the day," I sighed, glancing behind me for cars.  Not a whisper.  I smiled to my companion, raising my mittened hands to my smile.

"Oh, the sunshine touches your face just so," she said, the light shining from her eyes.

"Oh, there is so much gladness in the sun, peeking from around the trees.  And from a bend in the road!  And there's snow, so the light is bouncing all around us!  So much gladness!  And hope, and promise."

Shuffling back to the car, we climbed in, and guess where we drove?

photo by missy prince.

The spoken moments hold hands

  with the unspoken moments.

Frigid cheeks on an unswerving bridge,

   miles old;

Hardened rock standing firm,

   reaching far down into the swirls;

Babble passes behind and below--

   bicycles and arguments;

A seal glosses the water,

   A car trips along from the grocery store.

My legs fuse with the stones,

   and I, too, am ancient;

Forever here, 

   my history in battles and silences.

photo via

I have curled around your middle, and you may not realize, but I am holding you up.  

Your hardness surrounds you, but the veins show the scars of sobs through your skin;

I cradle those in the softness of my greenery.  

Cry, weep--your water feeds my leaves.  

The sunlight pours into our clearing every morning, 

and we, together, will be fed;

I will hold your head up, and you and I 

will close our eyes and bask in the golden afternoon.

When the cool night comes, we will stretch, together, 

and breathe the stars in and out, puffs of cloud.

And one morning, your fullness will astound the sun;

you are straight, solid all the way through.

photo via

"There!" she exclaims.  "That spot of light.  We walk to it!  Come on!"

To me, it's arbitrary, but to her, it's a promise, a motion.  I swing my arms and sing, "Gung ho!  To the light we go!"  Looking back, she rolls her eyes at me, but I know she senses my sincerity.  

"Quick, it's changing, the color's going!" I say.  So what does she do?  She spreads her arms, and flies me into the color.

photo by Cody Cobb.

Alike identical symmetrical similar flat unprofitable 

stale

After seeing so many miles, our feet shuffled at the beauty.  Our breathing was short from the gasps over every hillock and wide plain.  

Unaware, I looked and all I saw were the black shoes on my feet.

Face down on the ground, I didn't even smell the dirt.

photo via

I am a lonely ship.

You see other ships, but I would tell you I am alone.

They don't talk to me, and I don't talk to them.

I am a lonely ship.

Things bump against my metal sides, and I hear them,

But the things don't hear me.

They swim away, silver and sweet, and shining.

Also, things do cling to my sides, so sometimes there is company;

but we don't speak, just glide-plunge ahead,

silently together.

So I'd say I'm not that alone,

but still.  Kind of alone.

Somewhat alone.

But with friends.

photo by Elias and Theresa Carlson.