Most days I don’t know rightly what I see, or what I feel. Sometimes the river lightens, sometimes it turns its back and climbs back into its dark bed. Whatever floats on its surface then is heavy as a portent though it makes no sound. There is just breathing, the slightest pulse made by flowers and leaves, brown twigs that have fallen on its skin and are whisked away. But in my class tonight the students are watching a film about the Chilean writer. And when they come to the part where he speaks to the postman of the miner who comes up from underground and commands the poet to write of them, write of their struggle— soot flocked on his face like a mask— I think I sense more than see the slightest ripple, an adjustment of some of the bodies pressed to the seats. What will it take, what rearrangement of atoms in the air? A passing thunderstorm pelts at the windows. And afterward someone gets up to crack the window open, to release the humidity in the room. The evening is so cool, so layered with sound and a thumbnail of fragrance from magnolia trees in bloom outside the building. If you spoke to me of wings I would tilt my head, scan the sky from habit. This is not the wonder, but that it takes courage to remind of how those lifting, beating arms are yoked to a machine, how they are stitched, flag-like, to an architecture of overlapping bones: complex shell encasing the heart, cobbled of honey and wax, of twine and feathers.

I always wondered why the middleman who calls the bets at cockfights is called the Kristo—
and how sharp the flashing spurs, how vivid the blood-jet feathers of some roosters.

Our first grade teacher lectured us on piety, simplicity, and appetite— admonishing:
You’re not going to be those kinds of kids who demand, every day, a dish of chicken.

My father’s favorite dish was a clear broth with ginger and malunggay or sili leaves;
bobbing in the soup, perfectly boiled, salted, and peppered pieces of chicken.

My husband and one of my daughters were born in the Year of the Dragon; one daughter was born
in the Year of the Snake, another in the Year of the Pig. I am an Ox. My eldest is the Rooster.

Once I went to a sleepy town far south, where writers sat along the seawall all summer. A witch-
island was visible in the distance. Hot off sidewalk grills, we ate skewered parts of chicken.

The sauces drip from your fingers, down your palms. There is a different kind of joy in eating with
your hands. Give me a little salt with my rice, or shrimp sauce. Sometimes it’s better than chicken.

In the far north, past my own hometown, the locals have a dish called pinikpikan. I can’t tell you
more than that it involves the slow, induced coagulation of blood beneath the skin. And a chicken.

One day I wanted to tell you my biggest secret. You stood in the hallway, smiling. There was
no one else around: the perfect opportunity. But my nerves were snarled copper— I was too chicken.

Corpse of my own soul, from what tree have you flown to enchant me with a noose braided of anger and habitual sorrow?

For thirty years you are the idol I have carried on my back, and you have whispered story after story, seeded doubt after doubt in my ear.

Oh you have known how to goad with all things I most fear, I most desire—

And each time I stooped to admire the first purple irises opening along the rock wall, or the marvel of leaves shrinking back from touch, or the simplest form that grace might take, which is silence— you pulled on a string I could not see and made me start over, from the beginning.

You courted me with your amorous breath, your dank velvet robes, language to diffuse all bits of radiance and sink them into the mud so they find it difficult to rise.

But tonight I stand on the threshold of dusk and smell the odor of lavender in the window, the green of reviving herbs—

For all the times I have kissed you full on the mouth, my mouth is yet unburnt.

And I remember the richness of my inheritance, the ransomed cache of memories, the rituals for shedding scales and changing skins—

In response to Morning Porch and cold mountain (50).

UK blogger and photographer Rachel Rawlins has been visiting the USA, including Plummer’s Hollow (whence this photo)…

…and the wilds of West Virginia, where she joined me and my hiking buddy Lucy for five days of camping, tramping and photographing, not to mention taking in some of our southern neighbor’s unique cultural offerings. It’s always fun to see one’s favorite spots through the eyes of a first-time visitor.

I’ve also been quite impressed by her camera gear and expertise. She has multiple lenses and she knows how to use them. So naturally I’ve tried to capture some of her characteristic behaviors on camera. Who needs wildlife when you have ecotourists?

Plants such as Jack-in-the-pulpit do their best to elude the casual curiosity of tourists, hiding under the lips of their pulpits. Once recognized, however, these celebrities of the wildflower world cannot forever escape the persistent paparazza — nor, indeed, the paparazza’s paparazzo.

Trees might seem to be more tractable subjects, but if the forest is too dense, again the ecotourist may have to contort herself into various unusual positions — a behavior much to the advantage of the patient ecotourist photographer.

Even without a blind or other special equipment, being in the right place at the right time can yield spectacular results for nature photographers and photographers of nature photographers alike.

It’s worth remembering, however, that as shy and elusive as the ecotourist may be, she is still dangerous and unpredictable, and may turn the tables at any moment.

What muscled hate reaches out across the years and finds
blind targets against which to fling its poisoned arsenal?

One surface in every kitchen is nicked with marks: as though
the scene of regular practice for some circus impalement act.

The goal: to trace the body’s outline as it holds still; to throw
without shredding the air, to mark by merely a hair’s breadth.

A roll of the dice, a flick of the cards on the green velvet table.
Hands pass across stacked tiles, dividing the fauna and the seasons.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

1. The photographs she took reminded her with a start: there was a house below the gate to the army base. There was a discotheque in the basement, back in the day when the word was a kind of novelty.

2. One day, they took a walk to the co-op store to buy bread; someone had written on the chalkboard that skinned rabbits were available. On the way back, she picked dry pine needles from the road. She did not ask what was in the dinner stew.

3. When the wind blows sometimes, it brings the insides to the surface— carries the stench of open sewers. You take a breath, you clench, unclench.

4. Our neighbor’s daughter thrilled to see the chef toss cleavers, eggs, whole shrimp at the hibachi grill. Metal struck against metal and the heated surfaces of the stove. All show, all show. No real danger in the onion ring volcano, lit to miniature flared explosions.

5. The brass bell swings: small rings of sound under the dogwood.

6. She misses nights sleeping under white mosquito netting, the edges tucked around the mattress; the smell of starched, woven cotton.

7. Dreams and portents: a hand coming out of the dark, searching for another to clasp.

8. Warmer nights now, warmer mornings. Humidity you can smell, rising around the flagstones.

In response to small stone (87).

It is the same, though not so obvious, when one is reading: the words on the page might be a cipher, or they might slip into a fissure and wake something under the skin.

And yet I know that I have also said: I do not speak for anyone else but myself.

Hands grown old, brushing against verbena and mint for even a sliver of passing fragrance. Late spring chill like a tongue on the skin.

There is a Japanese dessert made of kanten and azuki bean paste: it is meant to evoke winter’s snow and ice melting, the earth becoming soft and sweet again.

Like beaten gold, scales flashing in the resinous waters.

The years might polish anguish to such a sheen.

What I will want to take with me: rich swirl and eddy, the sky’s impartial crease.

Everything’s mostly borrowed, but give me something to tell me it was not all for naught.

In response to small stone (90).

In response to cold mountain (54).

In response to cold mountain (53).

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.