1
the name of a tree is
resting against a tree:
the name of a place is strumming
the rings of a vocal
closeness, an uncertainty drawn
from the set of birds
along biographical contours,
a ravine forested with dots
its pointillist distance
throws an ache in the face
that flows against the map: sun
like a parasitic weed:
further the worded land-
marks, lichen-covered, no longer
enunciate human: at the centre
line a bird crowd
is staring down this rabbit,
besotted: among the names
frozen at the roadside: who will come
to smear: voice
the white with raw
2
day stakes its edges:
wind traces, imprints
framed to fail
translation,
in a stuttered walk
over frozen waters:
an eye-stone rests
where snow is light-cauterised,
long dry spines sharpen
mouldering forest tones,
from the still-needled
branches, drops sink a scatter,
its barbed braille
a handbook we
remain too blunt, too
gloved to read.
3
to read deep in snow restarts
the path, disappearing
it to eyes, anti-colour
and another: the crowing
of shadows at the shatter
of blackness: each night
a falling tree-limb: marks
interrupting whiteness:
its near luminescence
does not stand outside looking
no matter how soothing
the absence appears,
layer and layer, accumulative
closure, recapping the ongoing
distraction of opening:
4
frost-solid
trees: pale fronded
moss: solidities
for eyes
for lips: where the white
admits image
as skin: where a hole-
black hair carves
in milk a script:
an eyelash wiped
with a white hand’s
amnesiac slate:
where a mouth
eating eave-snow
cautiously under cold
sun, lost in the elastic
I of surprise: calls
recall so childlike
5
a rock recalls itself
along a river. i enact
this presence, in rings,
as reflex, as repetition, as
Lake Pearson rings
with mirrored water
fragile scratches,
utility routes,
light stiffening
tips of grassblades,
bleached out sincerities,
giving back to basics,
a lake an eye a bone cycle
continuing in air a bird
