Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire

CONTENTS

C O N T E N T S I . O N T H E M I R A C L E O F N A M E L E S S F E E L I N G To Spirits of Fire After Harvest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Some Kinds of Reading in Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Fuel of an Infinite Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Grammar of This Life at Noon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Geminid Showers & Health Care Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Late Autumn Storms at Pigeon Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 At the Solstice, a Yellow Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Early Sixties Christmas in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 The Vowels Pass By in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Something Has Been Reading the Fireroots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Body Politic Loses Her Hair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 In High Desert Under the Drones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Between Semesters, the Fragments Follow Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 We Saw the E Look Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 I Heard Flame-Folder Spring Bring Red . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 En Route to Bolinas, a Rose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 In the Room of Glass Breasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Equinox Ritual with Ravens & Pines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 To Leon, Born Before a Marathon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Fable of Work in the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 A Halting Probability, on a Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 In Summer, Everything Is Something’s Twin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 To Stem the Time We Spent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Facelessbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Two Summer Aubades, After John Clare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 E The Practice of Talking to Plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Ecopoetics Minifesto: A Draft for Angie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Foggy Animist Morning in the Vineyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Previous Dawn in the Next Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 West Marin Night During Perseid Showers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 For One Whose Love Has Gone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Patience Swoons in the Sword Ferns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Between the Fire & the Flood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Between the Souls & the Meteors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Moaning Action at the Gas Pump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Elegy for an Activist in Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Autumn Ritual with Hate Turned Sideways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Rituals with Food Before the Feast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 After the Feast at Year’s End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Report on Visiting the District Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 After a Death in Early Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Imperishable Longing to Be with Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The Hour Until We See You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Till It Finishes What It Does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 After a Very Long Difficult Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 A Spiral Tries to Feel Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 You Were in Sunlight Being Prepared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 On the Miracle of Nameless Feeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 I I . A S E N S E O F T H E L I V E L Y U N I T As the Roots Prepare for Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Summer Mountain Lightning & Some Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Elements Are Mixed in Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 At the Snow Line in Summer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Sky of Omens, Floor of Fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 The Seeds Talk Back to Monsanto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Coda: Suggested Activism for Endangered Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 The Nets Between Solstice & Equinox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Very Far Back in This Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 To the Writing Students at Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 The Letters Learn to Breathe Twice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Local Warming & Early Autumn Butterflies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Halfway Through Civilization, Late to Another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Imitating a Squirrel at my Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Experiments with Poetry Are Taken Outdoors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 A Short Walk During Late Capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 A Quiet Afternoon at the Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 A Quiet Afternoon at the Office II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 When the Occupations Have Just Begun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 After the Orionids, Near the Plaza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 From the Dictionary of Indo-European Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Short Anthem for the General Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Mists From People As They Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Types of Fire at the Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 o—o—o o—o—o o—o—o o—o—o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 A Brutal Encounter Recollected in Tranquility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 & the Tents Went Back Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 2 Journal Entries During Occupy SF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 An Almanac of Coastal Winter Creatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 The Second Half of the Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Lyrid Meteor Showers During Your Dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Poem of Hope, Almost at Equinox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Radical Lads, Blisters & Glad Summers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Mystical Lichen Falls Through the Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Smart Galaxies Work with Our Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 In the Evening of the Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 acknowledgments & notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 ...