Origin

All the deepest magics are bred upon the hearth.Warm brick and whistling kettles,story-tongued salamanders leaping to climb chimney walls only to fall back down as crumbling soot,Almost before they have driven us out of Dark and into Dreamguiding here and there by rough words, few, unsteady, and dim.Tomorrow, behind porridge gently steaming in the pale …

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Ordinary

by Sørina Higginsmy overcoat is a pelicanmy umbrella is a storkthe flowers I plant havegrown down into the soiltheir roots are enjoying the sunand everything I have to saypours back inside my lungs.my garden is a laundry binmy kitchen a game of chessthe dishes I feed you weregleaned from a railroada transcontinental surpriseand every last …

The Benefit Race

for Team Je Me Souviens They gathered in the pale before the dawnChecking stirrup and strap, harness and helm,Pack and saddle. They talkedOf last night's feasting.Their cause is sober, so they drink;The foe grim, so they jest.Neither dour nor depressed,Nor by some bleak humor possessed,They are girded by what it used to mean to be …

The Hollow Space Under the Stair

In the hollow space under the stairspiders breed all unawareof an untrimmed door set in the wallbehind the paint, narrow and small.This door opens on meadows bright -even while the household sleeps at night -or, perhaps, on rainy dayswhere water licks at stony quays,and houses lean across canals,and ships return from hunting whales;or else, broaching …

Folkdance

Sing we now all of our joy,Dance we all togetherThrough the rocky mountain cleft,'mid the purple heather.Merry our folk, with clasped handsOur feet sink down like roots;Morning wind is in our hair,Night wind in our flutes.'twixt day and night we hold our jig'tween night and day our harrowOur tune has crooked you at the knee,Our …

for Venezia

My mind has become crowded with VeniceIts streets spoke out through my skull,(As I'm sure you can see)Labyrinthing prayersIn passageways shadowed between windowed stoneworkWhose terminus is often in water, where echoes die awayI've no gondola to send them onPast the quiet, past the lattices, past the forgetfulnessWhich requires that I retraceCurves to the square.Beside me …