Terrain

Elegy for a Cutbank on the Hoh Where the river bit through last winter, the tree hangs half its roots in air, still leafing out—stubborn, astonished, holding what is left of the ground like a fist opened too late. The Hoh does not mourn. It carries the bank downstream and makes a small beach somewhere a heron will stand in, perfectly still, thinking nothing of loss. I want to learn that— to be rearranged by what moves through me and call it a new shore.

black bear sighting don’t speak the lord’s name in vain where the fungi can hear us i carry ice cubes across the yard for the orchids from my boy -friend but often wish i could do more for the amanita mushrooms off the abandoned two -track near the bird sanctuary destroying angels that’s what dad’s old friend Ralph Munch called them their gills free white for impurities to easily trickle in onion sack taut through my belt loop so the organs fall out veil hidden of its holy the kind of nudity...

How to Skin a Gazelle Inland the stars fall barebone / and white-livered through each bedroom we have built. Voices cast / to thin sky as homing pigeons / with no place to land. Across Beirut an orange tabby walks ear deaf to ground / stalking a sound in ebb. He is lucky, see / to chew only on dust and quiet of all in tumble. A hand lets go a breath / swoop dovelike to the nearest green mountain. The best coffee was had in Clarkston, Georgia / grounds thick at bottom of throat / and finjān.

Economy Psalm One day the Leaders decided, No more homes. An attic would be good enough, with plank floors engineered to creak at random, and windows that make use of source-light, the sun-streaks streaming in to brighten floating dust and add a little ambience. Over there—an armchair or rocker.

I should turn off the light. The lamp is on a table by my bed, a small claw foot table carved by my mother’s uncle. At 60 years old, it is one of the youngest pieces of furniture in this house. The house was built in 1881 and furniture has been added, added but seldom subtracted, ever since: a chandelier here, a brass lamp there. Lovely old stuff, lovely old overstuffed stuff. Passed from my great-grandfather to his son to his daughter to her daughter—my sister, Sarah. My younger sister.

The great fact was the land itself. — Willa Cather When I was a boy, we went every summer into the mountains.

Notes on a School Shooting I am not an open wound. I am four hundred miles and two thousand days removed, the evidence of a path crossed gathering dust in my parents’ office drawer. I am pacing the stalls at a Christmas market; I am drifting in the dairy aisle; I am buying wrapping paper; I am walking the dog. I am, I am, I am, I am—the tense a gross privilege, an intact adulthood unearned—I mutter it until it sounds wrong, until it’s all I’ve ever heard.

The pimple above Isabel’s left eyebrow was three days old, which was nothing compared to the one on the left curve of her jaw, which was seven days old, and the pair beside her right nostril were 13 and 14 days old, counting high to low. For two weeks, she tried everything she could—spot patches and face masks, cleansers, lotions, formulated creams, serums, ointments, even home remedies like salted ice cubes and banana peels, picking at them and not picking at them—but nothing worked.

Part of the work of being the poet laureate of Washington State includes creating a project. When I considered what mine should be, I knew I wanted to engage our young people. As a father of daughters and a teacher of students who are part of the Covid generation, I’ve seen firsthand the challenges they face. In particular, I see how so many experience anxiety and depression related, apparently, to spending more and more time staring into a screen.

Doris looked over at Michael with those enormous eyes, not sad or frightened exactly, maybe just a little sad and frightened but mostly questioning: Why are we here?