Nature

Songs of the Archipelagos

 For Small Island, Big Song

They come from places you could easily forget,
somewhere between the Pacific and Indian
Oceans: islands where statues gaze at the horizon,
like when the … Read more

In The Breeze

a swirl of ravenous winds,
pummeling down at high velocities
a trinket lost in the damage
a house, a home
more than a million and a half to count
tin … Read more

Pyrophytes

“Pyrophyte: Any plant that is resistant to fire,
or that needs fire to propagate.”—Wiktionary

This morning I’m breathing smoke
from forest fires two thousand miles away
and the people who … Read more

Stasis

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What are 24,000 years in a kaleidoscope of ice and dreams
I can smell the inside of a freezer as the misty air
passes to my lungs
A hollow cell … Read more

Old Growth

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Image: Rebirth by Ami Prasad

There is an emptiness to slender trees from which the layer of leaves
They’ve shed has only begun to melt into the undergrowth
Their youth … Read more

The Inheritance

Maybe it was in the genes Banneker inherited
from his ancestors, the Dogon, who, while the houses
of Lancaster and York ravaged the English countryside,

migrated to a southern bend … Read more

I Touched You Once

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Image: Beginning by Ami Prasad

I touched you once
In a moment that came in the afternoon of a day
Almost 100,000 years ago
Your breath felt in the wind … Read more

The Little Visitors

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She sings by the fire
Earthen floor swept clean
And hard-packed from years of feet
She cracks the shells and separates the meat
Years of toil have separated the woman… Read more

I Am The Master

Image: Zombie by Ami Prasad

The satin box of hubris exploded
covering farmlands with grey ash
Truth danced outside insolent ears
suffering from selective hearing
Why arrogance has a steel … Read more

Wreaths of Confetti

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It could have been a piece of a kite
A propeller dislodged from a toy airplane
Or a frisbee – splintered by time
These piles of brightly colored festivity
That … Read more