tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192908452024-03-07T16:15:42.783-08:00chatoyanceLori Witzel's pictures, poems and other souvenirs and artifacts.Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.comBlogger1694125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-22256866388466938632023-05-16T20:22:00.000-07:002023-05-16T20:22:29.734-07:00Biting one’s tongue / Che le sa<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjso7FP4UdHf1QVNIF8LCz_hJVmtalbxFpQekrg59DzkNWnQONIeZ_JzqsRZysvFvlxwxFkJSBWtWsy_Bh-RD1dsusb5IC9LRUN1ujg-ipaVKPoYCz-nY7l1hVmJ2PMNsUY0Evt0fgKOCYqxEV5QJos-MdVREH7JVXX2tzU4UXoxB9GnaEp8g/s540/Screenshot%202023-05-16%208.14.45%20PM.png" style="display: block; padding: 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="173" data-original-width="540" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjso7FP4UdHf1QVNIF8LCz_hJVmtalbxFpQekrg59DzkNWnQONIeZ_JzqsRZysvFvlxwxFkJSBWtWsy_Bh-RD1dsusb5IC9LRUN1ujg-ipaVKPoYCz-nY7l1hVmJ2PMNsUY0Evt0fgKOCYqxEV5QJos-MdVREH7JVXX2tzU4UXoxB9GnaEp8g/s400/Screenshot%202023-05-16%208.14.45%20PM.png"/></a></div>
<i>Image from <a href="https://picryl.com/media/chants-e90861" target="_blank">this site</a>.</i>
<p>To bite down on the very thing itself</br>
that gives shape to our sounds, voice</br>
to our breath? Holding the idiom close</br>
one would think what we’d say was so</br>
powerful, it required warding off in a</br>
deliberate act of self-harm—and yet</br>
the bite is most often accidental. O</br>
Friend, my wish: please let it shape</br>
every syllable, every blessing and chant</br>
you need to nourish yourself, and if you</br>
bite your tongue let it not be to hold</br>
back, let it be no accident, but rather a</br>
gift of Buddha-heart as it greets your </br>
Buddha-nature—“<i>Che le sa, che le sa</i>.”</p>Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-2543230038512900992022-10-13T19:34:00.000-07:002022-10-13T19:34:30.648-07:00My teachers<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqILg9zutl-UsiBu6mz5Aizf3VBj7DybsBNVcpeCCW9bgqfPSO_ZanWKRS0JmeeV68EECAmM0EgWXXi_sTDPiXonlfqRiPZTbsKCCbvajWjnwqvQsKpHLwzLi_caXFT2kOax0RXi6FTK1rNSyToClyBxgCaWAdmPAJuDBuPml4TS7Qqe8Fg/s3000/Jan_van_Kessel_de_Oude_-_Vanitasstilleven.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqILg9zutl-UsiBu6mz5Aizf3VBj7DybsBNVcpeCCW9bgqfPSO_ZanWKRS0JmeeV68EECAmM0EgWXXi_sTDPiXonlfqRiPZTbsKCCbvajWjnwqvQsKpHLwzLi_caXFT2kOax0RXi6FTK1rNSyToClyBxgCaWAdmPAJuDBuPml4TS7Qqe8Fg/s320/Jan_van_Kessel_de_Oude_-_Vanitasstilleven.jpg"/></a></div>
<i>"<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18877966" target="_blank"></i>Vanitas Still Life</a><i>," Jan van Kessel the Elder, National</br>
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Public Domain</i></p>
<p>The gray sparkling dust on the charnel ground</br>
I’d made. The conceit I had, saying a prayer for</br>
each one I killed, sending it off with an <i>om mani</br>
peme hung</i> and wishes for it to be reborn into a</br>
better life. It saddened me, killing those things,</br>
and yet I saw no way out of it. The birdseed was</br>
alive with moth larvae, the wrappers pierced and</br>
riddled. Even after cleaning out the pantry, more</br>
moths. And so, my mindfulness for the first dozen </br>
larvae, for their suffering as I crushed them, then</br>
the next few dozen, each time the blessing given</br>
wearing thinner, thinner through my breath until</br>
what had been a blessing became a curse, until </br>
I gave up the pretense, killed them with predatory </br>
pleasure. I didn’t want them to suffer yet gave no</br>
mercy, no more prayers, no thought to their pain.</p>
<p>Their gift to me: to see myself clearly, this hollow </br>
reed ingesting and excreting, my sentience mere </br>
paint on a wrapper of chemical processes ending </br>
with my teachers’ guts and broken wings dotting</br>
the kitchen walls, oxidizing in the afternoon sun.</p>Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-29887172077084501802021-03-17T20:19:00.000-07:002021-03-17T20:19:18.609-07:00Negative space (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHvhk2IDRQQ3KHcf-kdiQAFkW1GK33fOUuO6XRGWTqbB44d1hn9_-rinPS2UnNTnYErnFk6iRA0KclPoSa8QR-lCpCdiPoGtyPq4MUUzP1fiLtevUOEkLiu_VNu6YwW9Pr-Op5/s1280/1280px-Flickr_-_ggallice_-_near_Ernst_tinaja%252C_Big_Bend_National_Park%252C_Texas_%25282%2529.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHvhk2IDRQQ3KHcf-kdiQAFkW1GK33fOUuO6XRGWTqbB44d1hn9_-rinPS2UnNTnYErnFk6iRA0KclPoSa8QR-lCpCdiPoGtyPq4MUUzP1fiLtevUOEkLiu_VNu6YwW9Pr-Op5/s320/1280px-Flickr_-_ggallice_-_near_Ernst_tinaja%252C_Big_Bend_National_Park%252C_Texas_%25282%2529.jpg"/></a></div>
<i><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-_ggallice_-_near_Ernst_tinaja,_Big_Bend_National_Park,_Texas_%282%29.jpg" target="_blank">Near Ernst tinaja, Big Bend National Park</a>, </br>photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/people/11014423@N07" target="_blank">Geoff Gallice</a>, 2011</i></p>
<p>1.</br>
Drawing a nude model (oh no not</br>
naked, we say “nude” and I never</br>
thought to ask why) I was taught </br>
to seek the open spaces—as one </br>
example, the soft triangle made by</br>
the inner elbow and bottom of the</br>
rib cage, arms akimbo. We called </br>
it “negative space,” a way of seeing </br>
that’d flatten a whole person, turn</br>
them into an object, the openings </br>
around their life fixed in place like</br>
butterflies pinned by this gestural, </br>
analytical thinking that empties me.</p>
<p>2.</br>
I didn’t much care for exploring </br>
the steep sandstone ravines near </br>
our campsite; too much risk a storm</br>
miles off would bring flash floods,</br>
trap us there. (I have some fear </br>
of drowning, even in the desert.)</p>
<p>3. </br>
Your cupped hands create a tinaja for</br>
the rainfall that fell from the faucet. The</br>
blessing of plumbing, of brazing to join</br>
the pipes; astonishment at your body’s</br>
everyday movement and ease, its grace.</br>
Is it any wonder I love watching you as</br>
you bend towards the sink, set the water</br>
flowing, palms held to receive that gift? </p>
<p>4.</br>
<i>The joy of this world—there are no empty</br>
places, everything is full of energy and life—</br>
is equally its horror.</i> The biome of the gut,</br>
the hollow tube that pierces us. Archipelagos</br>
where the most violent exchanges occur at</br>
microscopic scale, whose tiny denizens first </br>
preserve us, and then, at last, consume us.</p>
<p>5.</br>
There’s a shallow valley on the bed</br>
that’s still warm, where the sunlight’s</br>
pooling, where your presence is felt</br>
in absence. It’s spring, now, it won’t</br>
be long before the bumblebees lose</br>
their balance, tumbling down off the </br>
flowering currant. The way I lose my</br>
balance, tipsy on all this sweetness.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-74090931890841570512021-03-07T20:01:00.000-08:002021-03-07T20:01:39.376-08:00Passage (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI35Xw6BzZjf1vI8wSCaxYlz5Rf4zbUMAKCRMb8jhQt7vjO1OdTfvBy6Dq0LN-NYtzqOuVnGLDhAnNIY4VGt2RqA5ne1RZLBqFmbxxq7SOVRVDN13CmjKL7N0hBIr-iucOHr4U/s920/PedernalesFalls-slide6-chert.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI35Xw6BzZjf1vI8wSCaxYlz5Rf4zbUMAKCRMb8jhQt7vjO1OdTfvBy6Dq0LN-NYtzqOuVnGLDhAnNIY4VGt2RqA5ne1RZLBqFmbxxq7SOVRVDN13CmjKL7N0hBIr-iucOHr4U/s320/PedernalesFalls-slide6-chert.jpg"/></a></div>
<i>From <a href="https://www.beg.utexas.edu/texas-through-time/pedernales-falls.html" target="_blank">here</a>; photographer and date unknown</i></p>
<p>1.</br>
Summer heat, a distant memory at the end</br>
of March in Portland. And even further back, </br>
the desiccation of Phoenix. I’d wake to rust</br>
on my pillow from nosebleeds; lips cracking, </br>
stinging from sweat as I tried to restart the car.</br>
Both of us overheated, stalled from vapor lock.</p>
<p>2.</br>
Learning Spanish. The verb “to drink,” <i>beber</i>,</br>
a softening edge to the “b” through my breath, </br>
voicing sound through the narrowest opening—</br>
a turbulent flow. <i>Scrying my future, when will</br>
thirst drive me to rummage through ALL my</br>
lost words, surprising myself when I produce</i> </br>
Quiero bebo <i>as if from a magician’s pocket?</i></p>
<p>3.</br>
The sadness sits within my chest and purrs. </br>
It weighs more than my heart, than Ma’at’s</br>
feather of truth, and in this way I know my</br>
restlessness is a marker of the danger I’m</br>
in. At any unlucky moment, Ammit could</br>
gobble it up: my pulsing, chambered soul.</p>
<p>4.</br>
If I had a pocket knife, I’d play mumblety-peg.</br>
If I had a pocket knife, I’d whittle up a whistle.</br>
If I had a pocket knife, I’d need to cut a switch.</br>
<i>I threw away my pocket knife, tossed it in the</br>
river where it sank like a stone, fresh blood </br>
on the blade calling a flathead catfish close.</i> </p>
<p>5.</br>
The path is broken chert, the silver thread of</br>
a creek shallow enough to wade. The path’s</br>
that faint scar on the palm of your left hand, </br>
cut while chopping onions. What I’d wish for </br>
is safe passage; what I have is anything but.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-26447670191816950302021-02-21T19:32:00.002-08:002021-02-23T13:39:36.028-08:00Submerged (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifMpJvRa3B97YwRdVNqhanAwc84IrpL-RqR4od6ndqTWXD-H38TjiDKpKqMe0-lW-k9qAgoAVG9ts_HrZtrmVTmhAosXoBpC_3IjEP28RzSi9vPzmuZ-vUdZRVexeYJOsfAm-0/s1831/medusa-basilica-cistern-04-hv2V.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1831" data-original-width="1221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifMpJvRa3B97YwRdVNqhanAwc84IrpL-RqR4od6ndqTWXD-H38TjiDKpKqMe0-lW-k9qAgoAVG9ts_HrZtrmVTmhAosXoBpC_3IjEP28RzSi9vPzmuZ-vUdZRVexeYJOsfAm-0/s320/medusa-basilica-cistern-04-hv2V.jpg"/></a></div>
<i>Image from <a href="https://www.yerebatan.com/tr/hakkimizda" target="_blank">here</a>, photographer and date unknown</i></p>
<p>1.</br>
I thought I’d be pulling thick mats of wapato from my backyard </br>
bog, but there were no rhizomes, few bulbs. What clung to the</br>
digging fork’s tines—rotting burlap sacks I’d forgotten, jute now </br>
sodden, snake-like. (On the other side of the world, stone-faced </br>
Medusa and her snakes rest underwater in the Basilica Cistern.)</p>
<p>2.</br>
The shudder, as tendrils of eelgrass wrap around my ankles.</br>
It’s the touch of something I cannot see, something benthic</br>
by me, that makes me pull away. (Coney Island, when I was six.</br>
Sharp sand scoured abrasions on my feet, and when I ran to </br>
meet the gray-green foam at the swash-edge, the salt burned.)</p>
<p>3.</br>
(There is a place where time dilates, the way a cat’s eyes do </br>
when its gaze is suddenly fixed on a moth. There is a place </br>
where time cleaves into all its aggregate parts, sedimentary, </br>
granular. There is a place where “when” and “then” and “now” </br>
drain of all meaning, the way a vortex drains a too-full lake.)</p>
<p>4.</br>
The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcus_phalangioides" target="_blank">skull spider</a>, above my bed, is hunting. Legs thinner than an </br>
eyelash, longer than my index finger, a slow herky-jerky measure</br>
across the ceiling. Does it see me? I can’t say, but discuss with </br>
myself whether or not to kill it. Whether or not it will scuttle down</br>
the wall, tangle in my hair. (I leave it, dream I'm grafting trees.)</p>
<p>5.</br>
Asked, and answered, with tenderness. What is it I wanted? To</br>
be brave enough to be weak, have the courage of a field mouse</br>
as it waits, so still, hoping the sparrowhawk will miss. To ask for</br>
what I wanted. First to ask myself (and hope not to break upon</br>
the question), then you. Drowning in fear; kissed back to breath.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-63728498744570401192021-02-14T08:20:00.000-08:002021-02-14T08:20:04.706-08:00Pappus (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkDX07Qx2Zc7VWyiN9eFXb12siIZpnsKLgmStdGEnwIvI87qMemLkVnftFUJB7-wOyI66k1dVijsPXnqbyJW1Rf7MHVLhNU8Ve3KdLut6h72R3xrhoXbt3QGWK0BtnfqeWa2vC/s2048/IMG-2491.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1445" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkDX07Qx2Zc7VWyiN9eFXb12siIZpnsKLgmStdGEnwIvI87qMemLkVnftFUJB7-wOyI66k1dVijsPXnqbyJW1Rf7MHVLhNU8Ve3KdLut6h72R3xrhoXbt3QGWK0BtnfqeWa2vC/s320/IMG-2491.jpg"/></a></div>
<p>1. </br>
It’s a snowstorm, or it was, and</br>
now the sun is setting past our</br>
sight, not yet below the horizon</br>
but unseen. The wind’s made a</br>
lung of tree ice: gray crepitations.</p>
<p>2.</br>
Everything’s been elided by this</br>
snow. First the junco tracks, then </br>
my steps, a few gone deep where</br>
snow-crust broke under my boots. </br>
Even these words now blow away</p>
<p>3.</br>
as does my heart, from deep red</br>
to something pale, untethered, it’s</br>
adrift the way dry snow falls, the </br>
way a dandelion pappus floats and</br>
tumbles once its seed’s dropped.</p>
<p>4.</br>
Wayfinding, as the twilight settles in,</br>
tinting the blown drifts methylene blue.</br>
An open question, as I’m lost again: </br>
what is it that I’m bait for, or a trap for? </br>
The blue, now darker, now black.</p>
<p>5.</br>
A pause. My breath—the slow cadence like</br>
yours, I recall, as you drifted off into warm </br>
sleep next to me on threadbare blue sheets. </br>
(Not indelible—a fugitive indigo, so mutable,</br>
weightless as dandelion fluff or a snowflake.)</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-20856776993112895572020-11-24T09:31:00.000-08:002020-11-24T09:31:08.937-08:00Stillness (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigs8hTfguFxVfOiTkB44YdnVK6wcMNKvc__xP_9_lAtG_Ac1mTvft1JBqMOoEzO8F1HqrdTsrTePKb_LYvb5OeMvSbVHrT6JdJni3liLcOIezLTNmQF2-yYCUvsHm3VBHCJ6ZI/s2048/IMG-1436.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigs8hTfguFxVfOiTkB44YdnVK6wcMNKvc__xP_9_lAtG_Ac1mTvft1JBqMOoEzO8F1HqrdTsrTePKb_LYvb5OeMvSbVHrT6JdJni3liLcOIezLTNmQF2-yYCUvsHm3VBHCJ6ZI/s320/IMG-1436.jpg"/></a></div>
1.</br>
I mistook it for a leaf, at first. Why else was it</br>
on the ground, pale and still. Of course I came</br>
closer, my eyes trying to sort what my mind</br>
couldn’t quite, that this was not a leaf, it was</br>
a goldfinch, so delicate, no sign of why it died.</p>
<p>2.</br>
When William Blake wrote “Energy is Eternal Delight” </br>
he had the devil speak the statement. (Would he claim </br>
other angels called stillness delight? I’d never studied </br>
Blake the way you did, dear. All I knew was Blake, the</br>
bravura craftsman, danced backwards on copperplate.)</p>
<p>3.</br>
The stillness of the body of the beloved, who</br>
was once my husband. I needed to witness it, to </br>
speak to it, his body an unravelling, no longer in </br>
consonance with our life. We knew it would come, </br>
the tsunami, the waves draining ahead of death.</p>
<p>4.</br>
I don’t cry much. Unless I see another’s tears</br>
mine rarely come. My mourning wraps itself in </br>
stillness. No plañideras need be hired—let us </br>
sit together, let those leaves fall for a shroud, </br>
for every wild thing that falls dead mid-breath.</p>
<p>5.</br>
Our mother star has broken through clouds, its </br>
radiance caught by my upturned face as if I were </br>
a sunflower. It dazzles me. All joy that was, has </br>
been doubled, tripled, washing over me, leaving </br>
me breathless, motionless, for a moment I’m still </br>
in your arms. This love, as profligate as fireweed.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-32831438202975089242020-11-17T13:49:00.004-08:002020-11-17T13:49:45.107-08:00Golden (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0lM0TasaAm6LLqfgQAEF5qCR9oReQSRTbg6qZTDsRkfmlAkwBeEHEnt3B0sc-gTJbtn0EiY5viUDcOcfYBfyFN_jyT9lROsd19cs0-eY3fSQKtFWK_DGwksK7X-O_KowanWX/s1582/chanterelles-geograph-6238899-by-Julian-Paren.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1582" data-original-width="1314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ0lM0TasaAm6LLqfgQAEF5qCR9oReQSRTbg6qZTDsRkfmlAkwBeEHEnt3B0sc-gTJbtn0EiY5viUDcOcfYBfyFN_jyT9lROsd19cs0-eY3fSQKtFWK_DGwksK7X-O_KowanWX/s320/chanterelles-geograph-6238899-by-Julian-Paren.jpg"/></a></div>
<i>Julian Paren, "<a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/more.php?id=6238899" target="_blank">Chanterelle mushrooms </br> in Rheindown Wood</a>" </i>
<p>1.</br>
Drifts of fallen elm leaves swept </br>
up and hidden in a bin, leaching</br>
summer light. I spilled them out, </br>
piled the gold to make a winter’s</br>
bed for shadbush and twinberry.</p>
<p>2.</br>
The Scythians knew the bride-price it’d take</br>
to gain a princess. Among their gifts—a pair </br>
of gryphons in hammered repoussé, ready </br>
to seize the light with their golden claws. Did </br>
they prick her skin when she first wore them? </p>
<p>3.</br>
The well is deep. The water’s dark. The </br>
coin I toss to wish upon—the sun, and I </br>
follow it down. The only way to rise and </br>
float is to empty my pockets, but I can’t;</br>
fingers much too numb to grasp for gold.</p>
<p>4.</br>
Love is the thing without tarnish. No, that’s</br>
not true, love is the thing that’s ductile. Ah</br>
no, try again, love is the thing that’s nothing</br>
like gold? Yes, better, but still not true. Love </br>
is what’s left, after the riffling sluice is done.</p>
<p>5.</br>
Oh, beloved, I’d lace up my boots and lace </br>
my fingers in yours, walk beneath the fir and </br>
the hemlock, walk into the shadows to lose</br>
our way, to find it again lit by the light of our</br>
kisses, by the light of golden chanterelles.</p>
<p>.</br>
.</br>
.</p>
<p>To learn more about the new poetic form, the cadralor, see <i><a href="https://gleampoets.org/about/" target="_blank">Gleam</a></i>.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-8576607308184741652020-10-25T19:27:00.003-07:002020-10-25T19:27:57.350-07:00Inheritance (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXyT08ZIjSzRRw1psud8mxtPBdwQn3dXfnc-liWMbABQdQrrPJO4UjMoMiaukxgfPSKbgETviEgZJ0B-kKACoLDp7kkwuKkueU6zXRRlUQ3LqUIWxJz0a81UM4VChBqQjRH_sj/s1280/1280px-Piper_auritum_Hoja_Santa_0zz.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXyT08ZIjSzRRw1psud8mxtPBdwQn3dXfnc-liWMbABQdQrrPJO4UjMoMiaukxgfPSKbgETviEgZJ0B-kKACoLDp7kkwuKkueU6zXRRlUQ3LqUIWxJz0a81UM4VChBqQjRH_sj/s320/1280px-Piper_auritum_Hoja_Santa_0zz.jpg"/></a></div>
<i>David J. Stang, "<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piper_auritum_Hoja_Santa_0zz.jpg" target="_blank">Piper auratum</a>," 2007</i></br>
<p>1.</br>
The ends of my fingers smell like clay </br>
and hoja santa. It’s leftovers for supper </br>
after digging in the dirt, the grit between </br>
my teeth extra spice for the mole verde. </br>
My mood? Nixtamal blue, bitter, alkaline.</p>
<p>2.</br>
I’m trapped, I’m free, I’m old and dying, a shock </br>
to myself, someone’s baby left to freeze on a hill. </br>
See those bones bent at the edge of the woods, </br>
a soul dowsing for a womb. The fall wind stutters, </br>
turns itself inside out for me, then scours me pink.</p>
<p>3.</br>
Radio sending me the right beat for a slow </br>
shuffle, a gliding two-step around the living</br>
room and I start to dance but it’s just me, so</br>
I stop. When did I last dance with my fingers</br>
laced through a stranger’s belt loops, formal</br>
yet intimate, wheeling, an orrery in sawdust?</p>
<p>4.</br>
Nostalgias seize me the way demons seized</br>
St. Anthony, lifting me up into the thin cold air.</br>
(Schongauer, through Michelangelo, and both</br>
so removed from my particular conceits. Could</br>
they have even imagined a creature like me?)</p>
<p>5.</br>
My father, driving me to ceramics class when I was </br>
eight, listening to the radio, forgetting for a moment </br>
I was there. He sang along to “The First Time Ever </br>
I Saw Your Face,” transported by some longing that </br>
embarrassed me to hear it; that longing’s mine, now. </p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-76480196673447752362020-10-19T06:51:00.000-07:002020-10-19T06:51:41.534-07:00Elegy (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVOpe_Iq516UqpmhEdMsNaeI5swAA_HV5n2sJgEUAD3bTC6qYF8Ah5N5ARJw6EcY83WOLE_vCc9_0h51vtAkBBkNOqZZAd6QwpvvI_0ihcaSkZYXBbDayfJ914_knnWlUYvcn1/s1280/1280px-Osiris_E9418_mp3h8807.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVOpe_Iq516UqpmhEdMsNaeI5swAA_HV5n2sJgEUAD3bTC6qYF8Ah5N5ARJw6EcY83WOLE_vCc9_0h51vtAkBBkNOqZZAd6QwpvvI_0ihcaSkZYXBbDayfJ914_knnWlUYvcn1/s320/1280px-Osiris_E9418_mp3h8807.jpg"/></a></div>
<i>Osiris and Maat, Louvre Museum, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Osiris_E9418_mp3h8807.jpg" target="_blank">photograph by Rama</a></i></br>
<p>1.</br>
A thready pulse; the silken blue line </br>
beneath the skin of your wrist telling</br>
us your heart is unravelling. How is it</br>
that we can’t thread this needle? The</br>
vein on the back of your hand shuts</br>
its eyes every time we try. The gown,</br>
unholy, scant cover for the ceremony.</p>
<p>2.</br>
Tuning the guitar to open G, getting it just </br>
so. I hear your ghost shimmering through </br>
overtones rising off the soundboard, dust</br>
rising off the neck; I saw how it broke your </br>
heart to no longer have the strength to try. </br>
Did you know I did it for your smile, all my</br>
practice and play? Gone now, the crown of</br>
callus on my fingertips, it’s been that long. </p>
<p>3.</br>
A coffee cup, full of DnD dice. Also in the cup: two </br>
pair of scissors; two hand-blown perfume bottles no </br>
bigger than my thumb, one broken. O undrinkable </br>
memory, to find me so parched my lips can’t mouth </br>
a blessing, afraid as I am to try my luck, to cut the </br>
blossom from its branch, fill what’s fragile with joy. </p>
<p>4.</br>
Your practice, those occult beliefs, kept you scrying </br>
the flame of your life, writing and reading sigils as </br>
if a surety, a bond for meaning. Yet when it all went</br>
south, dear, you had me and my love, enough to trim </br>
your nails, check for open sores on your feet; even</br>
unstrung, you sang to me, instar to eclose to instar.</p>
<p>5.</br>
The direct path isn’t for me. It’s the detour, the bend </br>
in the road I long for, but now I need to bring back a </br>
tale beyond my horizon. I find a ball of red string that’s </br>
infinitely long, tie an end to the First Tree and set off.</br>
How else could I find my way back, past the bend in </br>
an aorta, a thready pulse, the scars upon our hearts?</p>
<p>
.</br>
.</br>
.</p>
<p>To learn more about the new poetic form, the cadralor, see <i><a href="https://gleampoets.org/about/" target="_blank">Gleam</a></i>.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-82229970356393536232020-10-11T19:00:00.000-07:002020-10-11T19:00:32.161-07:00Ink (A cadralor, for Caitlin G.)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-TGBMYWaqJ1eW3AxMtG_V7bVlYM05t0PKEqEWrPnxYPzFrobUgNdP9LYEoBPvxSYXC3f8PTj1nXqERsbdj0h0ygt6qE620ryZFMd1xZeBXVeqRr0stlzXPjQ9FD7-riLRRg9u/s2048/s3_V0022000_V0022984.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1579" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-TGBMYWaqJ1eW3AxMtG_V7bVlYM05t0PKEqEWrPnxYPzFrobUgNdP9LYEoBPvxSYXC3f8PTj1nXqERsbdj0h0ygt6qE620ryZFMd1xZeBXVeqRr0stlzXPjQ9FD7-riLRRg9u/s320/s3_V0022000_V0022984.jpg"/></a></div>
<i><a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/hqs643hj" target="_blank">Wellcome Collection</a>, "A crow is standing </br>
on the handle of a large pitcher in front of </br>
a well; illustration of a fable by J. Ogilby"</i>
<p></p>
<p>1.</br>
Bottled shadows, the inverse of </br>
the droplets of liquid mercury I’d </br>
play with when I was a child: wet,</br>
welling up like tears as my crow-</br>
quill pierced the surface tension.</p>
<p>2.</br>
Incomplete instructions for making </br>
a silverpoint drawing. Rabbit-skin </br>
glue needs a little grit, it’s the tooth </br>
that bites off the silver. An invisible </br>
ink, no truth shown until the tarnish.</p>
<p>3.</br>
The well’s broken, we don’t know why. Sent</br>
a camera to snake down the hole, pass its</br>
signal up, ghostly as a sonogram: a hex nut</br>
has stripped off, jammed the pump. We call </br>
a machinist. His nails, black as new moons.</p>
<p>4.</br>
On the floor and flat on my belly, propped up on my</br>
elbows, watching Ko-Ko climb out of the inkwell. The </br>
old TV screen shiny as my five-year-old’s delight in</br>
those adventures I’d have, if I didn’t have to go home; </br>
years later, the sad nostalgia of Ko-Ko on tattoo flash.</p>
<p>5.</br>
Another home: I learned when </br>
northern cardinals flashed red </br>
through live-oak, you’d make a</br>
wish. Here, it’s ink-black crows </br>
who make a wish, on seeing me.</p>Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-22561616072588370732020-10-07T21:42:00.000-07:002020-10-07T21:42:05.387-07:00Flicker (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4BzJg4CsB68FdCz10cww-uAN3Ur4MqdKvDcdA5Hm_-ejdiZXxmGKgnlcz8qAyapsS32Ba9mszg_8kXgOJEEKbzGYOnCLEZVYP1ckZaNhFWXl9DVnSa41YqOPPda5WTFQAuW85/s1280/Northern_Flicker_Red-shafted_-_Flickr_-_GregTheBusker.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4BzJg4CsB68FdCz10cww-uAN3Ur4MqdKvDcdA5Hm_-ejdiZXxmGKgnlcz8qAyapsS32Ba9mszg_8kXgOJEEKbzGYOnCLEZVYP1ckZaNhFWXl9DVnSa41YqOPPda5WTFQAuW85/s320/Northern_Flicker_Red-shafted_-_Flickr_-_GregTheBusker.jpg"/></a></div>
<i>Greg Schechter, "<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregthebusker/4616675628/" target="_blank">Northern Flicker, Red-Shafted</a>," 2010</i>
<p>1.</br>
The call—squeezing plosives through </br>
shafted light—repeats. I tilt my head </br>
to fix the source, perhaps to see the </br>
bird, but there’s no bird, just the call. </br>
Is this a song with no singer? What is</br>
it, that cleaves the air and my heart?</p>
<p>2. </br>
Taking my loneliness out for a walk, I stopped by a</br>
movie theater, a seedy old revival house, where the</br>
matinee was a double feature: “Popeye” and “Shaft.” </br>
The line went around the block. I paid my five dollars, </br>
sat among fierce joy-filled children hollering for their</br>
heroes as the baddies were beat down. The cheering </br>
in the flickering light, when we still believed in justice. </p>
<p>3. </br>
The limb that split off the apple tree the week</br>
after we bought the cottage. Where it cracked</br>
wasn’t a clean wound. Now half-healed, half-</br>
rotten; worse, a water sprout thick as another </br>
trunk’s behind the break, an imbalancing act</br>
near a row of Os augured by downies. Flecked</br>
shadows; perforations tell the wind, “Tear here.”</p>
<p>4.</br>
I walked and walked, far from where I lived.</br>
It was twilight in that city, I was night-blind </br>
at the bottom of those steep sooty canyons. </br>
The deserts I’d known weren’t as arid as my </br>
hope for joy, there. Waiting for rain, for tears.</p>
<p>5. </br>
The first bird I knew, here, was a surprise out</br>
on my brother’s balcony. An awkward landing</br>
seen out of the corner of my eye as we were</br>
talking. Spots! And gray, and a flash of color</br>
when it wheeled over the railing, falling into the </br>
sky. Red-shafted, my brother said; I thought it</br>
a miracle, to be so beautiful and so common.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-85926707728951645572020-10-03T19:10:00.000-07:002020-10-03T19:10:23.722-07:00Bookmarked (A cadralor)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6RI3XEEZoFa6Joa6Aikfelc2VaZe6sDB0oUKaZAH6xmxn3NvA_2ZILQ8hMXfaW4W9KRcgIZwN_8wiMZGJbYzuBETbGPFGJLVLut7kzwwW1fvV7axLsU0FKXhs6WatgrPtKaLZ/s1024/Auburn%252C_CA%252C_Hummingbird_in_Lewis_Mock_Orange_Shrub%252C_May_2009_-_panoramio.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: left; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6RI3XEEZoFa6Joa6Aikfelc2VaZe6sDB0oUKaZAH6xmxn3NvA_2ZILQ8hMXfaW4W9KRcgIZwN_8wiMZGJbYzuBETbGPFGJLVLut7kzwwW1fvV7axLsU0FKXhs6WatgrPtKaLZ/s320/Auburn%252C_CA%252C_Hummingbird_in_Lewis_Mock_Orange_Shrub%252C_May_2009_-_panoramio.jpg"/></a></div>
<p><i>Chris English, </i>"<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auburn,_CA,_Hummingbird_in_Lewis_Mock_Orange_Shrub,_May_2009_-_panoramio.jpg" target="_blank">Auburn, CA: Hummingbird in </br>
Lewis Mock Orange Shrub, May 2009</a>"</p>
<p>1.</br>
I ripped them out, root and stem, the mock</br>
oranges that never bloomed. Tapping on </br>
their canes, a hollow sound like a chime </br>
made of bones. Too close to the foundation </br>
of the cottage for the light to reach them, too</br>
close to a time when I didn’t know their name.</p>
<p>2.</br>
Every breath shared, as I open a window to</br>
the day, though there’s woodsmoke on the air. </br>
The snake plant says it will pierce the air for me, </br>
and it does. The clearing fog, lifting; light falling,</br>
playing mumblety-peg with the dagger of a leaf.</p>
<p>3.</br>
Who gave me the gray-green jasper I dug out of</br>
the flower-bed? Whose mouth did I kiss to tongue </br>
the stone, taste the clay? Who was it, pica-kissing </br>
the dirt under my nails, sucking my fingers clean? </br>
I dreamt I’d mislaid myself, woke in a muddy bed.</p>
<p>4.</br>
Some old wives’ tale retold to its roots, when the bone </br>
meal for planting roses began as blood sacrifice—as I</br>
remake garden beds, digging through worms and clay, </br>
I find a coccyx under an old white rose, shank bones </br>
under a sword fern; porous, rusted from the iron seep.</p>
<p>5.</br>
At your touch, memories stir and rise, dust motes from </br>
places in me I’d long forgotten—the sweetness of maple </br>
sugar on my lips, the vanillin lignin smell of pages from </br>
a long-awaited book I opened, as you open me; oh place </br>
your mark, love, hold where we stop for now to start again</br>
later; let’s not forget how our bones will feed the flowers.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>To learn more about the new poetic form, the cadralor, see <i><a href="https://gleampoets.org/about/" target="_blank">Gleam</a>.</i></p>Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-73958998405284168812020-09-13T17:50:00.000-07:002020-09-13T17:50:03.499-07:00Tishrei<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqmx5zti2tZRKhMtNd9v9MzHe6LNRj2UraXhgckIO43RSeSSQWCPhloOvX0kjQqIuFmIcm0Lb7Rnl3_12TOTp2ChzdGqXdXbh_3YDpWXY9hMU2NE8_kVgglXi4ZncQiOdcdOy/s2048/web-fires.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: none; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqmx5zti2tZRKhMtNd9v9MzHe6LNRj2UraXhgckIO43RSeSSQWCPhloOvX0kjQqIuFmIcm0Lb7Rnl3_12TOTp2ChzdGqXdXbh_3YDpWXY9hMU2NE8_kVgglXi4ZncQiOdcdOy/s320/web-fires.jpg"/></a></div>
<p>The stories spin, warp and weft through</br>
holes in a tablet, in my memory, others’</br>
fingers spelling ram’s-horn patterns, the </br>
horn a reminder of the communal breath </br>
we no longer share. Tell me a story about </br>
a weaver, I asked the wind. “Only that a </br>
spider dropped its thread, too heavy with </br>
ash to sieve for flies.” This fire season, I</br>
see hummingbirds rising like sparks, their</br>
nests dusted with soot from those webs.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-42167390596737990122020-09-04T21:42:00.000-07:002020-09-04T21:42:26.428-07:00Sough<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwSAxvhjCGf5OJqLOauEh_uG1om-R4ZypbGroUsxJ6NMsxWcMO2XdEyWxAasNl_TONefgV8YxReJAGRCtCfemvBOTK51TDV_u95oBz5kP3HVv2FqMu3hwBjfNsrk988UP0ouk/s1920/lead-mines-clough-4590490_1920.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: none;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpwSAxvhjCGf5OJqLOauEh_uG1om-R4ZypbGroUsxJ6NMsxWcMO2XdEyWxAasNl_TONefgV8YxReJAGRCtCfemvBOTK51TDV_u95oBz5kP3HVv2FqMu3hwBjfNsrk988UP0ouk/s320/lead-mines-clough-4590490_1920.jpg"/></a></div>
<p><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/lead-mines-clough-rivington-uk-4590490/" target="_blank"><i>Lead Mines, Clough, Rivington UK</a>, </br>Gary Gray, Date Unknown</i></p>
<p>The excavation’s long since stalled</br>
out. Digging the sough, I mean. <i>“To</br>
mine the lead, we need to draw the</br>
water table down, to draw the water</br>
down we need to dig, but the picks</br>
were left behind, were lost, and so</br>
am I.”</i> There’s a shallow ditch, or the</br>
shape left behind where you fell. Oh.</br>
Oh. This geology, these mines, clay</br>
under my fingernails that smells like</br>
the last kiss I gave you—atop your</br>
head as you dozed at the computer,</br>
blue-gray light from the screen like</br>
a caul, wrapping us both. But I left</br>
the room to go to bed, and you, my</br>
dear, fell, then crawled, then left,</br>
and still I can’t drain this sough.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-13357060059824899292020-04-18T13:30:00.000-07:002020-04-18T13:30:12.654-07:00Plumb line<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTVBuKoZiT3nRIdE5lOgs0iwwEG7y_vW76Ipj8XW5QuNf8Ko9aucMFHA_alAoQc11LHU1lQ6wHjQVPEh99PQs-Sp9yqkKIsVkY_BfbsefVSh6uBpuFTweG7BNng9i4hu0_6W-/s1600/Plumb_line.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTVBuKoZiT3nRIdE5lOgs0iwwEG7y_vW76Ipj8XW5QuNf8Ko9aucMFHA_alAoQc11LHU1lQ6wHjQVPEh99PQs-Sp9yqkKIsVkY_BfbsefVSh6uBpuFTweG7BNng9i4hu0_6W-/s320/Plumb_line.jpg" width="320" height="320" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1600" /></a>
<p><i>By <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gurdeepdali" title="User:Gurdeepdali">Gurdeepdali</a> - <span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70106458">Link</a></i></p>
<p>It points towards the center of gravity of the earth,</br>
which is grief, or iron. Not lead, despite the weight</br>
I feel at the center of my chest telling me otherwise.</br>
I don’t think a person can build something true and </br>
square without a plumb-line, though—even when</br>
the pointing towards the gravity of grief, the burrows</br>
where its small cousins live (little creatures without </br>
names, blind and scrabbling for grubs in their dark </br>
dens) leaves me raddled and hollowed out. A weak </br>
field spun up by my fingertips to sing for you, for us,</br>
along the wire—loss trued up, pulled towards the iron</br>
heart of things, spin and stasis, magnetic at the core.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-22614363685623623702020-04-07T15:25:00.002-07:002020-04-07T15:25:55.341-07:00Respite<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU2jdhi-qFMJtozIyhpqAAPldnfl5MUovNYxoMGIZzoqi7isdORSs5T8KDVKigBwTrXzBNx8WeuNdYpEnEOI7SXa8YDv6FMBTholcqh51ffsMH4O9l6BqyKejsk23JkNAvyGIK/s1600/apples.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU2jdhi-qFMJtozIyhpqAAPldnfl5MUovNYxoMGIZzoqi7isdORSs5T8KDVKigBwTrXzBNx8WeuNdYpEnEOI7SXa8YDv6FMBTholcqh51ffsMH4O9l6BqyKejsk23JkNAvyGIK/s320/apples.jpg" width="306" height="320" data-original-width="1531" data-original-height="1600" /></a>
<p>The apples that have traveled further</br>
in two weeks than I have in two months</br>
tell me stories: how the pollen-dusted</br>
bees tumbled in their flowers, how the</br>
growers counted out their pennies to</br>
pay for the right to grow them—apples</br>
piled into great wooden boxes where </br>
they slept, strapped to a truck bed, snug</br>
over macadam, dreaming of earthworms </br>
fat and red as bud-break on the currant.</p>Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-22823116270001650642020-03-22T11:13:00.000-07:002020-03-22T11:13:36.913-07:00Decameron 2020: From a post to a private Facebook Group 3/22/2020<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80fePbB-dbkud8vOhDTO8o2tHRz3gQA4Bulh097sO1Wjlf_D6D0HBGtGTcFjc3tgj69hF6gNGGQ-BsbdBQQ9RqWeKhoDNz8-mTa4ON0Vog9AepboYKCGC05oC1XXf76BbKwm1/s1600/Redear_sunfish_FWS_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80fePbB-dbkud8vOhDTO8o2tHRz3gQA4Bulh097sO1Wjlf_D6D0HBGtGTcFjc3tgj69hF6gNGGQ-BsbdBQQ9RqWeKhoDNz8-mTa4ON0Vog9AepboYKCGC05oC1XXf76BbKwm1/s320/Redear_sunfish_FWS_1.jpg" width="320" height="277" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1386" /></a>
<p><i>Timothy Knepp, "Redear Sunfish," 2008</i></p>
<p>It once was true, and true it shall ever be.</br>
The cattails, taller than I was, obstructing my view.</br>
The rusty old rowboat, with its creaky oarlocks.</br>
My grandma, gently pulling the oars as we made our way through the reeds and cattails, fishing.</p>
<p>It was summer (it had to have been summer, I was maybe seven, maybe eight, so I was in school if not for summer), and we’d go up to Rockland Lake, and my parents would visit with cousins and aunts and family friends, and I’d go with my grandma on adventures.</p>
<p>She showed me how to put a worm on the hook.</br>
Oh, how it struggled, the poor slimy red thing, roiling between my fingers. </br>
I couldn’t do it, so she did it for me.</p>
<p>She’d bait her hook too, and we sat in the rowboat near the lily pads and cattails, watching the red-and-white plastic floats bob a little on the riffle.</p>
<p>Until the float popped under!</br>
“Pull back a little - gently!”</br>
I tried to set the hook, and it didn’t seem to set, and when I reeled in there was half a worm left on the hook, and no fish.</p>
<p>She helped me put a new worm on, and cast off again.</br>
We sat, together, on the water, in the green-and-rust smelling boat, in the warm sunlight.</br>
She smelled faintly of perfume and laundry and cotton cloth.</br>
I was her cub, she was my lioness, showing me how to hunt, keeping me safe while I learned.</p>
<p>Her float ducked under!</br>
She set the hook and, like magic, like something from a fairy-tale, she reeled in a small iridescent rainbow, pan-shaped, a sunfish. It was a keeper.</br>
And then my float popped under, and she helped me tug back to gently set the hook, and we reeled it in together, and it was a perch, a yellow perch. It, too, was a keeper.</p>
<p>She caught one more panfish, and I helped her row us back to the dock.</br>
Later, at the bungalow, she skinned and gutted the little fish as I watched in raw fascination and horror, deboned them, minced the meat.</p>
<p>That night, we all ate home-made gefilte fish.</br>
The golden light of the day passed into night, and me and my brothers and little cousins were tucked into our cots, and I fell asleep.</p>
<p>Safe, and fed, and full of the day.</br>
It once was true, and true it shall ever be.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-47182947490779012592019-12-11T14:21:00.002-08:002019-12-11T14:21:52.533-08:00Blessed memory<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_ctibGmhp02Vv_SCAclNlWXZ572A1C5pRb3Rw4BuMmlRse46Aoc3MbKgd9KPiuohxa9CRUwugP6jyy300vAG7S4W_K-V66aXRlxwrzHhDfi_jG_cWQ_LVvNNfcAnGd-AeP8O/s1600/1024px-Daucus_carota_closeup.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_ctibGmhp02Vv_SCAclNlWXZ572A1C5pRb3Rw4BuMmlRse46Aoc3MbKgd9KPiuohxa9CRUwugP6jyy300vAG7S4W_K-V66aXRlxwrzHhDfi_jG_cWQ_LVvNNfcAnGd-AeP8O/s320/1024px-Daucus_carota_closeup.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="768" /></a>
<p><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Daucus_carota_closeup.jpg">Daucus Carota</a>, photographer unknown, 2006</i></p>
<p>If it wasn’t for that neural trick </br>
no stories could make their way</br>
from lips to ear, or from then to</br>
now. I couldn’t conjure myself</br>
at six, at ten, my heart open to</br>
the queen anne’s lace and its</br>
amethyst heart at the center of</br>
the umbrel; couldn’t recall the</br>
fear, the bloody wet ruby of my</br>
skinned knee. Limping home,</br>
crying for my dad to help me</br>
after I fell off my bike. He was</br>
there, gathered me up, cleaned</br>
and dressed the wound, wiped</br>
my tears. And now he’s neither</br>
there nor here, he’s dust, and </br>
the child I was tells me a story </br>
I need to hear (of course he fell </br>
short, of course, but it’s also so</br>
simple and good—just a child,</br>
bleeding stopped, tears dried). </br>
<i>Z"L</i>, what’s written as we murmur</br>
their names, our beloved dead.</p>Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-80389735038024466702019-10-09T20:27:00.003-07:002019-10-09T20:27:50.647-07:00Shadow<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLkl5jK5Kyfrvqb3Wc7w35ZdTonY7BsRuTepbaE835qk5br6ySfvv3aE1eQfr6YohHxWYgLXVhAa4Rm38p6CwCYOimo6vw1sViZRucqFOaRWXW74XkaqN0BIHs5aZSqZhTcqt/s1600/Daguerreotype_Daguerre_Atelier_1837.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLkl5jK5Kyfrvqb3Wc7w35ZdTonY7BsRuTepbaE835qk5br6ySfvv3aE1eQfr6YohHxWYgLXVhAa4Rm38p6CwCYOimo6vw1sViZRucqFOaRWXW74XkaqN0BIHs5aZSqZhTcqt/s320/Daguerreotype_Daguerre_Atelier_1837.jpg" width="320" height="233" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1165" /></a>
<p><i>Louis Daguerre, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=330674">Plaster casts</a>, Société française </br>de photographie, 1837</i></p>
<p>Ahead, approaching, some stranger comes</br>
walking, loose-limbed and arms swinging wide— </br>
that silhouette, shadow-play brushing a scuffle,</br>
a soft shoe, a memory. Familiar, unfamiliar, the</br>
stride—they grow taller, elongate, and I catch</br>
myself, my self. It’s me, it’s my shadow blocking</br>
the light, as liquid and dark as ink from the well.</br>
My harbinger twin, spilling stories I can’t yet tell.</p>Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-52917779379589854702019-07-22T22:04:00.000-07:002019-07-22T22:04:10.856-07:00Bee<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w80Yfbyi2IXWj1qxymVazCWmVV7X97q24GeUMwCFgpJC-S8PGDJHrS54cX9RxdaXJyhDjp_jbXNdwqMeBUH-vkgCS7iwrvffSZ8c7Qh-dbCvVG1-oLkHVcn1Y4NsBBM5GvcX/s1600/2443492737_b5ec3aa6fb_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w80Yfbyi2IXWj1qxymVazCWmVV7X97q24GeUMwCFgpJC-S8PGDJHrS54cX9RxdaXJyhDjp_jbXNdwqMeBUH-vkgCS7iwrvffSZ8c7Qh-dbCvVG1-oLkHVcn1Y4NsBBM5GvcX/s320/2443492737_b5ec3aa6fb_b.jpg" width="320" height="208" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="666" /></a>
<p><i>Reese Derrenberger, "<a href="https://flic.kr/p/4HVxg8">Fig</a>," 2008</i></p>
<p>The memory of sweetness, hollowed</br>
out. It stopped me, as I bent to pry up</br>
milk-sapped spurge from a fissure in </br>
the drive (for what? it won’t save the </br>
spalled concrete)—a ruin of what was</br>
once a honey bee, its head excavated, </br>
sightless, resting near a broken thorax,</br>
an empty abdomen. When I went to</br>
look again after weeding, it was gone. </br>
I felt as if I’d misplaced a letter sent by </br>
an old friend, then misplaced not just </br>
the letter, but the empty envelope, the </br>
blue-and-white Chinese porcelain dish </br>
where I’d set it, that I’d even misplaced </br>
the memory of paper sacks full of sweet </br>
honey figs still warm from his garden.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-10306598607558776092019-07-05T11:34:00.002-07:002019-07-05T11:34:32.966-07:00Suspended<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCal9fTXTkf6_GTcyZQ89Es3X4quIf-1R5A15HVp3NQT0doU8t-w6WGWfGXUYmiCyChXL-Y6q2XIGXbcEW2LuG-614s8kxOjzNB1-o4tS2qCdV-_WRwFqb8qXX6ot_lzIeN-4k/s1600/slats-vine-bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCal9fTXTkf6_GTcyZQ89Es3X4quIf-1R5A15HVp3NQT0doU8t-w6WGWfGXUYmiCyChXL-Y6q2XIGXbcEW2LuG-614s8kxOjzNB1-o4tS2qCdV-_WRwFqb8qXX6ot_lzIeN-4k/s320/slats-vine-bridge.jpg" width="320" height="272" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1358" /></a>
<p><i>Angelina Earley, "<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/daedrius/3697817146/in/photostream/">Vertigo</a>," 2009</i></p>
<p>As I lay these words down I wish each </br>
were a wooden slat bound up by strong </br>
rope—maybe made from twisted vines, </br>
or yucca fiber rolled into cord across our </br>
thighs, across all the days it takes to make </br>
a line long enough to find you. Each word </br>
pierced for the rope, tied up and tossed </br>
through the air, I’d watch them extend as </br>
if they were my own hands arms spine ribs </br>
stretching out to you, towards a place so </br>
wholly unknown. Listening to where they </br>
catch, to where we each tie up, both of us </br>
at the end of every arc of our single stories </br>
now suspended and made new, as we both </br>
place our trust that these words will hold </br>
us safely until we can hold one another.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-54617140098628642842019-06-30T20:11:00.001-07:002019-06-30T20:11:40.513-07:00Castaway<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhehtq-fN1oTw7TJLbcGu3nLXF6Dkka_NhpsLlLUY_MmOa8c_DGuYnrrSZSX15ZmVlxGODDk5ZnG8UiIzms-gWG9hzU_eRtfKaK0n2XIVeE0rF31OsJ9TnvokfzdRbQuOo3Nbhr/s1600/Ge%25CC%2581iseres_del_Tatio%252C_Atacama%252C_Chile%252C_2016-02-01%252C_DD_24-26_HDR.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhehtq-fN1oTw7TJLbcGu3nLXF6Dkka_NhpsLlLUY_MmOa8c_DGuYnrrSZSX15ZmVlxGODDk5ZnG8UiIzms-gWG9hzU_eRtfKaK0n2XIVeE0rF31OsJ9TnvokfzdRbQuOo3Nbhr/s320/Ge%25CC%2581iseres_del_Tatio%252C_Atacama%252C_Chile%252C_2016-02-01%252C_DD_24-26_HDR.JPG" width="320" height="213" data-original-width="1280" data-original-height="853" /></a>
<p><i>Diego Delso, "<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:G%C3%A9iseres_del_Tatio,_Atacama,_Chile,_2016-02-01,_DD_24-26_HDR.JPG">Geysers of Tatio, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile</a>," 2016</i></p>
<p>My footprints have been swept clean away</br>
by the wind. <i>Do I know where I am? Yes,</br>
I know. I am here. I am lost.</i> And the sun </br>
is high in its arc, its shadows cast black as</br>
pips on white dice, the dice I tossed when</br>
I set forth, <i>Audaces fortuna iuvat</i>. Mouth </br>
as dry as the scree on this downslope. <i>I</br>
wonder, now, if Virgil made a bleak joke </br>
in giving those words to a man who loses </br>
and dies.</i> We all die. In dying, lose touch.</br>
The talus slope underfoot shifts, slides—</br>
and I lose touch with where, how I began. </p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-44729593326067532182019-04-09T22:16:00.001-07:002019-04-09T22:16:10.977-07:00Bud-break<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9HucsGHhWydR9jzRonbRvbGi68dSx777HFdXze0UqIYS8nj3EOBRowkviFXEMN2jsLzGWtGjHfP4zSXeHM45leJfECTuDWPAbpW8S65NhI-XxXWTKWjm6d5fDrK0C_IZPlm2g/s1600/13256696443_529ff6d353_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9HucsGHhWydR9jzRonbRvbGi68dSx777HFdXze0UqIYS8nj3EOBRowkviFXEMN2jsLzGWtGjHfP4zSXeHM45leJfECTuDWPAbpW8S65NhI-XxXWTKWjm6d5fDrK0C_IZPlm2g/s400/13256696443_529ff6d353_k.jpg" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1201" /></a>
<p><i>John Rusk, "<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/john_d_rusk/13256696443/">Trillium chloropetalum</a>," 2014</i></p>
<p>Darkness is almost absolute in the understory. </br>
Here, where I don’t cast a shadow, where the</br>
Catherine wheel of needled branches breaks </br>
the winter sunlight on its way down, bleeds it</br>
of warmth til it’s frayed and pale as mycelium. </br>
Near where summer’s wildfires stained our lips </br>
with tarry soot, made it impossible to speak.</p>
<p>But this is how we’re born, from this darkness. </br>
Juncos tell me seeds have burst their jackets so</br>
they must fly towards higher ground, the rising </br>
wind lifting them like samaras above the earth, </br>
away, away—and here, love, the understory’s </br>
long night is now starred with white trillium, a</br>
scent that pitches me headlong into bud-break.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19290845.post-56576983936819195152019-03-26T19:03:00.001-07:002019-03-26T19:03:10.761-07:00Geodesy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMiKBYERPIm6ycZKo8MXiK18YBnGG5-Lu7dxYs9hrkOBUI9BOyVSbMLzzgtcWmTZv6PZQZN9pDclO41MpXCrg5ipbq1AsmKzz5D7UI5HQ8oaqJnl8ZJV6CLhKSnzK2xx2DhcaA/s1600/art-2568306_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMiKBYERPIm6ycZKo8MXiK18YBnGG5-Lu7dxYs9hrkOBUI9BOyVSbMLzzgtcWmTZv6PZQZN9pDclO41MpXCrg5ipbq1AsmKzz5D7UI5HQ8oaqJnl8ZJV6CLhKSnzK2xx2DhcaA/s400/art-2568306_1920.jpg" width="346" height="400" data-original-width="898" data-original-height="1038" /></a>
<p><i>"<a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/art-clay-pottery-people-artist-2568306/">As Earth spins</a>, its shape is slightly flattened into an <a href="https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/GOCE/A_force_that_shapes_our_planet">ellipsoid</a>, so that there is a greater distance between the centre of Earth and the surface at the equator, than the centre of Earth and the surface at the poles. This bigger distance, coupled with the rotation of Earth, results in the force of gravity being weaker at the equator than at the poles."</i></p>
<p>The shape of the world: pushed down</br>
by its spin, “a flattened ellipsoid.” As if</br>
a potter’s wet hands, while centering clay </br>
on the wheel, let the rotation take over,</br>
as if they stepped away to get a fresh cup </br>
of tea, as if the spinning clay gathered a </br>
wisp of the earth’s magnetic field to itself—</br>
a cloud condensing, a blanket against the</br>
solar wind—and made an atmosphere.</br>
As if the potter returned as a goddess, a</br>
geologist or mathematician, the maker re-</br>
making, remade by the shape of the world.</p>
Lori Witzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04744273435691506484noreply@blogger.com0