The birds are whispering together.

Cold husks of leaves and seeds litter the ground,
scuttle through pathways to the street.

You were the one that found the rocks.
The layered soapstones, the agates, the moss-in-quartz.

When we kicked along the edge of town,
It felt like daylight,
it felt like just before-sundown,
it felt like winter hinge,
day-hinge…. in breath between day and night.

What was this we used to call it years ago?
Evensong?
What Rilke called it?

Spectre stone,
Rock formation
Shadow form.

The lit fuse of memory is running its trace through my storehouse tonight
shining indiscriminant on that summer season,
afternoons stacked brightly like old slides,
packed tightly like clothes in a trunk,
dust and yellow grass, heat and edge of nothing town.


I don’t know what I am trying to remember.
But I miss that person, most dearly.

You are ravens-head,
lampblack.
I am powdered ash, white stone,
goldenrod.

Together we make a circuit,
halo-haze, coiled spring, resin-ground.

You are obsidian,
lava-ground, jet-stone.
I am cindered-flowers, dry marigold,
sandalwood, sweet smoke.

You are inscriber, chalk-marker,
Graphite-sewn.
I am worked-on, cinder-prone,
Soapstone.

(older poem, elg 2010)