Prima Materia
Providence
Nirvana
brooks and
creeks through
black bedrock,
blonde soil
the huckleberry
and tan oak are
licking caves and
netting boundaries

I’m noticing
when the sun
goes down in
the mountains
and how it happens
quicker here than
anywhere
else

I have
cold feet
hot feet
depending on the equinox
I see rain running down
the trunks of trees,
a man’s neck,
a vein

I chop wood
carry water

There are
raindrops
on the skylight
the smell of
propane and matches
an amplified drizzle
on the tin roof of my
cabin–it makes me feel
wetter than I actually am

Pacific Madrones mature outside
Those curly golden chopsticks
of irregular tang and lime
those pillars rising up and falling
out of dense coniferous forests
I was a child then
not now
–but I used
to climb them

I am on the inside
I am on the inside
with a log so good and
ready for the fire it’s
like bubble wrapping
when you put it on there
popping and cracking
and carrying on in
the cast iron stove
I am alone
yet I am not alone
–the forest,
it leans into me,
it breathes and
spits at the
windows

–the earth
not the world
keeps me company