That Ideas Change Everything
...mankind is challenged, as it has never been before, to prove its maturity and its mastery—not of nature, but of itself
—Rachel Carson
that seeds float on the air across oceans often in the bellies of birds
that all travelers leave something behind
that every place is both a home and a road
that one minute the kudzu is in our hands and the next minute out of them
that a new landscape starts with a seed
rendered swiftly into mountains of biomass, tyrannies of green
that on the same land someone once tried and tried to get anything to grow
that we’re always right between given and giver
that every effort is a question
that one time I took a flower to school for a boy I liked, and carried it around with me all day
too startled by my own idea to give it to him
that I wondered if everyone thought it was for me, or did they just see through me
to my crush, that bright and tall indigo iris coming back home with me
that later I learned an iris is also called a flag
that we might question what we set into motion and find our own selves moved
that this unmooring might find a new course
that otherwise we simply move towards death
that I only think of reincarnation when it serves me
that beauty repeats itself
that there are feats of engineering that look like enormous shrines
that a landscape undone is also called a mine
that we can never know all that we’ve changed and are changed by
that we are easily carried away
that neanderthal DNA shows up everywhere, which doesn’t tell us anything except
we’ve always been moving around and sleeping together like strays
that at some point we awoke to tell each other about our dreams
that we communicated and made choices of consequence
that a romance is sometimes called a fiction
that it is natural to be surprised
that the cut-flower industry is exempt from most pesticide regulations
and a major contributor to fuel emissions
that flowers were the beginning of sex on this planet
that our own seeds spread quickly
that our learning is slow
that some people learning a new word may try to pronounce every letter
just in case that’s how it is said
that there are infinite ways to say a thing and we’ve only thought of a million
that we think we have one try
that radicle and radical both refer to a starting point
The Grain
As in sand – in an oyster
as in with or against
in binary thinking
or as a field of thought
but always the continuance
along hills and valleys
of difference
an old man stumbling
dissolving or pearling
breaking down or breaking into
the life
as in a life
a value of song, for example
a beloved voice, and our attempt to describe it
with other voices
novelty and introduction
the song tearing through
the culture thing
that swaddled us
and later
got under our skin.
Foraging, No River
In the string quartet when one violinist plucks one string
and the whole thing comes down around it.
Butterflies et cetera.
The cat uninterested in the same fox
that utterly retains our human imagination.
A dainty triangle in the air.
Remember when we used to talk about the future
but in a good way?
The ritual cars backfiring through the neighborhood.
That one cottonwood tree is some comfort to me
with its stories of other places.
Like the forest has also
been hedging its bets?
It does something incredible for people
to acknowledge their smallest works.
Rag and Bone
I’ve always wanted to be
Person Carrying Flowers
but it turns out, I’m a
gatherer
I just like holding things
what if you met yourself halfway
because no one else could
going door to door
buying & selling
bits and pieces
crying spell, story, growth mindset
a touchable podcast
for the hard of feeling
hi there, all I’ve got are these fibulas
and a few soft things to cover them
having left all the weeds in the field, to thrive.