i did not ask them to come.

still
the crow people approach me
as if i am reflected light.

i introduce myself as coming from
the people-of-lost-ways.

i tell them
a great fear is working on me.

i tell them
the worried teeth of mice
live in the walls of my mind.

i tell them
that i need help
like the sky
helps the stars.

by holding them
as they burn.

they huddle together
a bit like wasps will do.

then draw me in 
and lay me down
and place me there
into a vision.

and with their beaks
they take my body apart

and speak to the pieces
how to become things.

the hair of my neck
now a bristling howl.

taproots are born
of my restless legs.

my tired feet swell
into fat rhizomes.

humus and stone
make my trembling hands.

my fingers grow long
with moss and tendril.

arriving
at the end
of the sky
is a star
that is also
my head.

my chest is a young mountain
born from the caverns of the old one
that is my rumbling belly.

and the soul
comes to council
with the crow people
who work the thing
with smoke and ash
until it shines
as the eyes 
of a wild animal.

and they put me together.

and wrap my hybrid flesh in the shining soul.

and i sleep.

and i wake.

the morning is brilliant with light.

a star being held
as it burns.

there is nothing else
to remember.

there is a timeworn pattern
that teaches all things how to sing.

it is itself a song
of spirals
billowing about the land
to whittle the nights long.

the airy ones
will empty themselves
and drift away
on a map of stars.

the earthy ones
will collect a larder
and lodge themselves.

i am in the hazel.


a gathering sack 
slips from my shoulder
as i spread my hand
long and lean
to harvest those seed
nearest the sun.

coming down 
i lower some
to a chamber door
of the whistle-pig
and whisper,

thank you.
i am sorry.

and cast myself
beyond the edge.


the thicket
grants such focus
that i do not mind
the twigs snapping
and how
they draw blood.

the hazel is in me.

come dark-time
we will crack nuts

by a circle of fire.
we will feed each other.

we will use two stones
chosen for the work

as if we are being visited
by a time
thousands of years old.

    ah
    old time
    there you are. 

    will you stay a while?

    will you help us to remember
    that all we need
    are these two stones?

i.

suddenly
someone you love has died.

you begin to lose track of it all.

people are saying
life goes on.

the seasons have become strange things.

drought and flood and fire
come and go
and come again.

during the long-ache of your heart,
a louvre collapses. the old barn
has opened its mouth. the weeds
have flourished into small trees.


ii.

the brush is piled here
in a loose mound
where small creatures
will make shelter.

the scrap metal over there
to rust in a new place.

the small trash will be stuffed
into bigger trash.

the wood cut
from small trees
will need to cure
in a dry place
to warm us 
once the frost wakes.

stones always go in a pile
at the center of the world.

when you are drawn down
this is where you will pray.

the vulture’s feather
will hang above the doorway.

the bones found
that make the work feel hungry
will be arranged in a way that speaks.

now
you must pay attention.
the old oak is watching.

it is time you declare
your name and business—

to the one wielding bone-wood arms,
reaching out to collect birdsong.

to the one bearing a great hollow,
caving in to clear a path home.


iii.

you are becoming familiar to strange things.

the old oak and the old barn
have found a way to gnarl and bend
into one another,

becoming less themselves
and more otherwise.

the lives inside of them
coming and going
and coming again.

at the center of the world
where you have prayed
a mongrel spirit appears.

charms slip from their mouth
in an old tongue
that you no longer recognize.

they slide the sharp end of a bone
into the soft muscle of your heart,

which empties
to be filled again.

owl are the people from whom i come

i dwell with my family
in the lightless chamber of an old oak tree

my body is the craft of countless soft winds
who touch everything in the forest

i am molded from a specific silence
that gathers beneath stones in the day

and there is a darling starlight
who is shimmering in this rich blood 

my face is an ecology of feathers
with a corpse-stenched hook

between two bottomless wells
brimming with nightsky

the stillness of my attention
becomes an immaculate spell

i am fishing the rapid heart
from a field mouse 

the thing still beating 
as it settles into my stomach

the rest still warm
when i bring it to my children

after dinner i find the high branch 
because i have grief like old trees

i sing to curse the perpetual shining
that collapses my dark teacher 

the star-sucking light that is forging death
from the lives of my people

with a body worn
i am in bed
listening
to the restless calls
of a scouring cloud,
to the start of patter
on the roof.

of course,
the weather machine can tell me
all about the impending doom
of the wind and rain,

and i can continue to lie here.

but that will cost something
wild and precious.

i make my way to a hilltop
where things congregate
and say thank you
again and again.

looking west
i see the roiling face
of a thunderhead
building itself
into itself.

in the field
there is a young doe watching me.

she is eating
alone
again.

    where is her herd?
    where is mine?

my attention is given
to a whip of lightning.

    there is a young doe watching me.
    she breaks for shelter.

i remember
to count the seconds
like i was taught
as a child.

    one.

    two.

    three.

    four.

the storm is less than a mile away.

after the rainstorm left
the hummingbird arrived.

she settled on a sopping flower
the color of blood.

how wearily
she emptied herself
of air. 

how her body moved
bearing the weight
of water.

i had been writing about the cracks in things,
learning the ways of my own weary hunger.

    her little stomach
    becoming the bloom
    filling with nectar

my mind did not leave
her body
as she flew away.

i wonder what long ways
she will travel today,

and in what blossom
will she leave my mind?

i.

    dear creatures of earthly capture,

in an act of utter devotion
we summoned fire
down from the sky
& up from the center
of the earth

what happened next
is uncertain
except
we were on the path home

when we lost it
or it consumed us
or we forgot the offering

    how are we gonna get out of this one?


ii.

the old ones tell us
we have origins in the stars

have you sensed your flesh
spun from dark fabrics of the cosmos?

eyes lit by the heaving flames
of entire lineages
bursting open
& collapsing?

whole bodies remember themselves
as black holes

black holes remember themselves
as homeland

    what is it anyway
    that you offer relatives
    who are thirteen billion years old?


iii.

    damnit, be still.

let the thing secreted away
in the silence
come forth
from the kingdom
of ghosts

let the thing grumble a bit
about being hidden
for a thousand years

let the thing stall you 
from yourself
long enough

that you become
otherwise

will you begin to sniff
& lap at the air
like an animal
obeying the cycles
of a wild holy dust?

    we think of you often.
    how are you holding up?


iv.

greeting a thing
& being grateful to a thing—
aren’t they meant to be inseparable?

the way a body
once folded into creation
will have a path home
for all time

the way the tree of life 
must also be
the tree of death

the way the vulture eats

this is how the story
remains eternal


v.

    dear creatures of earthly capture,

death
is the dream awoke
& life
is the wish granted
to whatever crumb
of heaven falls
from the great feast
in the sky
& settles
into your body

you will orbit this crumb
for a lifetime

and a lifetime means
death is coming

when it arrives
it is my wish
that you are too full

of remembering

to be afraid

        old ones
   of cloven-path

i hope it is no bother
that i call upon you now
from this world of fire

will you help me
to find a way home
through all this smoke?

         old ones
   of tine-thought

i will give to you my soul
which you will have to share
with everything

i will give to you my mind
which we both know
has been yours all along

        old ones
  who time-carve
    hollow homes
          to fill
      with teeth
        and fur

today i will give to you my heart

let it be returned a compass

i will know the work is done
when i hold it up to the light
and cannot discern

if i am gazing
at my heart

or the belly
of a snake 

i.

i am in the forest
and i am never alone

the newly waning moon is rising
in the east

low enough still to be lit
by flame and fox fur

this is the portal 

    that is shaping the bones
    of owls
    and sculpting the stature
    of plants

    that is the dark eye
    of our divinity
    and the bright eye
    of our dreaming

    that is the primordial conductor
    of this holy racket


ii.

i kneel to find the earth
and am already being held
with enduring hands

i mound a nest
of rotting leaves
to lay my body down
deep inside the sound
of the hundreds
of them

here
we call them katydids

and their lavish throbbing
ferries me away

because
it does not stop moving
once it is here
filling the air of the forest

and i have climbed aboard

a guest in this strange pulse
of a place where
there are holes in everything

so all of it
can find a way 

not back
but through


iii.

the males are rubbing together
their front wings

rattling glory into the dark

they have gathered together
in the trees

in the night of the world
to sing with one another

like decent human creatures
of the earth
long to do

in the long heat
i have seen them stricken

i have seen many of them
finally give

and i have seen them
in prayer

of course
they are always praying

their days spent growing
into devotional postures

their old bodies
bent toward every speck
of great mystery

and many of them
have been slowly drawn dry

they are tree kin
too thirsty for this world

soon whole leaves
will be sucked free
of the green
given to them
for eating light

soon whole leaves
will die into the color
of a mineral earth

and in a time to come
the wood-root body
that binds them
to the land
will fail to hold

the whole thing
will cave
and be born
into something else

but before that
a mockingbird lands

upon a branch
of the bone tower
in the leafless view

and from one end
sows the future
of a thicket
bowing with fruit

while from the other
sings a song
of loving
and dying
and knowing
in the heart
when it is time
once again
to return home

i look up
and am drawn
to something quite serious

two dense white plumes
are living in the sky

the slender blue line
of nothing
between them
is thinning

a tension gathers
in my torso
as i watch them
swelling
toward collision

upon touching
i expect them
to rattle the earth

i expect to hear things
falling apart

what i hear
is nothing

as if the spirals
of my ears
were not crafted
for gathering
these voices

so they collide
in silence

two clouds
becoming one
at the speed 
of song

the white giving way
to silver
and then
to graphite
and then
a light rain
landing
upon my face

the lightning ignites
and i feel the earth
quiver with thunder
as a heavy water
begins to fatten
the land

i wonder
if this is the sky
fucking itself

and i look down
to see rivulets
and notice
i have been witness
to two clouds
plucking me from time
to teach me
bottomless things
about patterns

breaking apart

and coming back

together

i gather together
these sacred things

the cosmos
an animal
gnawing the eternal story

the earth
a heart
swaddled in soil-skin

the forest
a mind
gathering leaf-time

the hedge
an artery
ever-shifting the pattern

    as brambles bed
    beneath the hot hands
    of the sun

    and scatter
    their tumbling body

    they are collapsing
    the edges
    into themself

    to carry forward
    the blood-story
    of their past

    while pleading:

    please, eat—
    and do forgive
    the fangs

i am bitten
and bearing myself

my tender meat
for a hungry realm

the body
a vessel
wrapped in a leaking pelt

each cell
a cosmos
churning the milk of creation

each thing
strewn as seed
about the ever-else
offers a place
to be holy

offers a reason
to go still
and be fed:

    please, eat—
    and do forgive
    the fangs

it is July
dear day-star

and i feel you
as monstrously alive—

a molten swarm
of divine wildfire

your danger ablaze
with a wild generosity

i am gripped in the tendrils
of your heavy radiance


and lately
dear day-star

your strong hands
of light
are kneading
everything
into a stupor

some days
you feel too near—
my body collapsing
from the tyranny

some days
i forget
you are a star
at all

and some days 
i remember
your present moment
reaches me 
in the time it takes
to make coffee

so the radiance
that frolics about
my skin 
exactly now
has traveled
through immensity

to find me
and show me
and warm me
into being here

    how does it feel 
    to be the hearth
    of this sacred mess?


it is night
dear day-star

when i remember
i see you only
as deeply
as the reflection
held by the moon

or the shape of you
becoming 
jagged golden beads
all along
the wind-blown surface
of the water

    how does it feel
    to ceaselessly look

    upon a world
    filled with eyes

    that cannot meet
    your gaze?

i.

just before we met
i was making cradles
for wapato tubers
so they can make
more of themselves
in the rich mud.

and i was drilling holes
in the ground
to plant snake eggs
for the same reason.

then i saw you
crouched
still as a waiting arrow
before a slow-built
and silent thunder
burst from you

and you swallowed whole
the slick body
of minnow or tadpole.

i could not be sure
which it was—
i could not be distracted
by anything that specific
if i were to stay
in the field
of our coiled presence.

you knew i was there
seeing you
and that was the part
getting into me.


ii.

does your family know
there are still good people
in the world?

you were noticing me
digging my paws
into the warm muck
to make life swell
like the old ways—
my years spent
falling in love
with the fertile mess.

will you tell your family
i have been decorating the place?

when i stood 
and we faced each other
you appeared nervous
at first. i was.

i was afraid
i would have to watch you
fly away.

instead you danced.
i should have known
you would dance.


iii.

your body
became empty
of the ground
and moved
into delirious loops.

you landed
with feathers rippling
as if they had learned
a thing from the water.

your neck gently stretched
into a plumed serpent
as the crest atop
your spear-skull
was called awake
and then flickered
from green to blue
as you lifted it
again and again.

i wanted to dance with you
but became too enchanted
to move.


iv.

you were the most staggering thing 
i had seen that day.

until i turned
as i was leaving
and looked toward
where we had been
to see the light carrying
subtle movements
of the water
and laying them 
on the alder leaves.

i missed you then.

but maybe
that was you
too.

i.

with the first
came a seed
    engorged
    as the udder of Audhumla

    plump
    as a ripe blackberry
    whose arching cane
    is the crooked finger
    of the land
    beckoning us

with the second
came a tree
    whose stature grazes
    the trembling clouds

    whose roots worm their way
    into the heart of the earth
    to be fed

    whose grand center
    beneath the canopy
    holds us
    in a great balance

and with these two
came a third
    flowing always 
    from the otherworld
    to get here

    a heavy nectar
    waiting in blossoms
    of the dreaming

and i come
as a fourth
    this fidgety
    flesh-made vessel

    a shelter for 
    this scalding sense
    of desire

    a soul shaped
    to carry 
    the sweet drink

    a body meant
    to kneel before
    a weathered craving
    whose tendrils
    embrace the heart
    of madness


ii.

old ones,
holy ones,
spirits of root 
and wing, of fang 
and feather, of time
and dust, bear-breath
and marrow of bone,
of tear-water
and tide-spell,
mountain-throat
and river-song:

    bless me
as my hands wring
    bless me
as my body rocks
    bless me
as my lungs wail
into the dark wood

    bless those
who midwife the madness
who call medicines awake
from the crevices of their minds

    bless those
who craft a holy thing of their terror
who see to it their madness
does not become a portal for harm

    bless those
who tell stories riddled
with phantoms
curious for our devotion
who keep fires lit
to meet with the dead
and speak to them
in tongues
of smoke
and ash

    bless those
who drone deep and long
the insect songs
that bore holes
into the backs
of our skulls
so that we may properly
make noise

    bless me
as i fold myself into the risk
of reverence
    bless me
as i learn the altar
of my body
    bless me
as i trust this madness


iii.

i have arrived here
in the trouble
of these hedge-times

cradled in my devotion
to a spirit of the land
whose timeless work
bleeds into all things

whose only alliance
is the burden
of carrying forward
the pattern
of boundless creation
eternally

whose hunger is stilled
as i dwell the unknown

and our bond is forged
of a maniacal passion
    which travelled here 
    after being hurled
    from spitting flames
    of the sun 

of an ecstatic reverie
    gathered from
    the ever-thin face
    of the water
    as it barely holds
    a delicate reflection
    of the moon

of a body open
    yet discerning
    as the mouth
    of a cave


iv.

in a world of rupture
i will stand in the body 
of a great fool

fling myself
into a fit
of awe

scream my prayer 
to someone dear
with hopes they do not flee

i am the offering

and you
great spirit
are the shrine
that is home
to this holy madness

at an age when my marveling body
began to carve passages
through the hedgerow 
and into the heart of a southern forest

   i began to carry memories

   i began to have a past

when i met a box turtle
and thought so highly of them
i ferried them around in a small cart—

    a feral procession
    through the middleworld
    to honor my first friend.

when a cropduster’s descent
disrupted the worlds i had built
and left everything in fright—

    i stood still 
    riddled with awe and confusion

    before laughing my way
    into the kind of danger
    i could play in.

when great-grandpa Levi lured me
with sweet peppermint sticks
until one day he didn’t—

    the family gathered in fear
    around his white dragon
    spewing flames and black smoke

    we watched his house burn.

when there were no streetlights
along our road of sand and clay
countless stars fixed my gaze
and came to me
in colors i can no longer see—

    something holy still stares back at me
    from space.
    
when i escaped the prison of my bedroom
from a window
over and over again—

    chasing my own wonder
    into the swamp and sand

    once with my sister
    to whom i can never offer
    enough apologies

    once i hid us
    beneath the bridge

    our family cried our names
    in a sob and fury
    because—as Levi would say—
    maybe we drownt
    in the hog waller

    beneath the bridge that day
    i lost the ability to become invisible

    my sister needed protection

    beneath the bridge that day
    came a serpent
    long and black in the creek
    rippling about the world
    undulating into the future
    into me
    before swimming away

    my family’s cries broke free of coherence

    i rose from the edge of the underworld
    prepared for my beating.

when one sweltering day
i stabbed again and again
clean through the walls
of my bedroom
with a steak knife—

    the body of the sun
    leapt through the cracks
    and entered.
    
oh how badly i needed those slivers of light.

among the bewilderment of becoming a body
i arrive with a creature sculpted of dread and beauty
that i must learn to love
even as they hiss: 

    you will be a destroyer
    in this strange offering of life—
    you will carry
    the waiting seeds of loss
    wherever you go

i arrive with a hungry wound whose vast mouth speaks to me
in a tongue of stars slung from primordial storms:

    and you are an animal
    crafted exactly for heartbreak—
    the sweetness of your creation will come near
    when you hold close the ruins
    that have settled into darkness

so i learn to wander the cracking hallways of my heart
with the lights off

to notice
that in this shattered temple
i am not a visitor

i am home

the disciple
of a divine beast

this heat is a fierce spirit
and i want you to know that i am here

watching the sun reflect in each little bead
you have made

all of June
i will orbit the tangles of your sprawling body
and pluck your thousand hearts

there will be times i reach long and deep
into the shape of you 
daring to leave some of myself behind

i will hear little bodies scattering
and floating about
inside of you

because mostly
you are composed of a loving nothingness

and that gives you the power
to also be rabbit and wren and wasp

when it is all over you will have wounded me
and i will have wounded you

my blood will have fed you
and your children

and yours will have fed me
and mine