adios

this blog has ended, thanks for reading, my new posts will fall here

Otter Creek at Belden Falls

divide & fall, two times & more

boats climb your bank for portage

conglomerate machinery straddles

your east flank, overlays of

concrete & steel, bolts, pipes

gear that powers towns

rippled glass pours down your brow

tumult below, boil & froth

spill across massive boulders

spiral through wide & narrower gaps

arcing above you a hiker’s bridge

chain-link toe & finger holds

to guide me up & over

a plunge if that day comes

Pholcus phalangioides

Don't worry spiders,

I keep house

casually.

— Issa via Robert Hass

all I’ve done for nine months is travel 

what have I learned? what’s the prize?
a newborn seems a prize until it’s crying

I’m sick of moving house, yet here I am

in a house not mine, a bare space, not unlike

any place where life must spring from a pen

to fill the hollows — here’s a gnat, in the sinks

are crane flies & daddy longlegs, Pholcus

phalangioides, aka skull spider — Wiki says

it's like but not a crane fly, aka Tipulidae

some call Opiliones daddy longlegs

though they aren’t, they’re harvestmen

the air in this room brims with Arthropoda

come clades, settle this latest home

Beatrice

I weep for her. John weeps.

Our minds fracture into

search parties. Hunting

on beyond six days

& seven nights, we fear

as she fears. If we are not

to find her, give us a caverned

corpse, a limb, a scatter

of bones to make a cairn of.

We know how strong preys

on strong, how the strike

the wound, the play

plays out, memory of each

mouse, spells of defiance

attempts at escape, casual

buffets & final blow. Like

her namesake, she’s taken

too young. We know

she fought. We travel far

lifelong. We are never done.