Tracing the new shore

You can read the poem that originally accompanied this letter in Rising water / Palm to stone, a pamphlet I published in winter 2021.

That’s my letter to you this month — a poem to conclude what turned out to be a three-faced conversation with this strangest of springs. (You can read the first two letters here and here.) But conversations never really end, do they? Mercifully no, especially with poems, who wander off into the trees only to reemerge in echoing birdsong once the leaves have unfurled. Just ask hermit thrush. On that note:

Taking the auspices
We continue our loose, far-flung divinatory experiment, in which you readers (you there!) reply to a simple question: what do you see or hear or feel around you right now? What gestures are unfolding in the land? Just a few words about something pretty or puzzling will do, in whatever style feels groovy, or no style at all. I’ll credit you by name or pseudonym (whichever you prefer).

Here are the replies that arrived over the course of May:

Plunking twangs flick and echo on wood
Chirping chits chat and vibrate on glass
— Hugh M. N., Gallery of Refraction

Crane Gazer, Glacial Glade
— Still Here, Late Quaternary

a day of rain
the plants stretching
the robin wins the battle
life moves to the beat of the droplets
— Under Eaves, Looking Glass River

fleeting, and only in the sunniest spots,
brief scents of dust and warmed needles
it’s coming
— L, Boardman Lake

Please send yours along! Until next month, keep the conversation going, and consider venturing into the cold water.