every tree on the coast leans inland, stretches their branches toward the hills away from shore. what do they know?
Tag: Nature
On a Beach in Astronomical Twilight
It's just so improbable, you know? Those stars are thousands of lightyears away. That would mean these photons flew here, voyagers, trillions of miles, from a home they'll never return to, and nothing got in their way. They didn't stop at another planet, get eaten by another star, collide with an asteroid, or freeze in a comet's tail. These photons sailed right here, into our eyes, uninterrupted for millennia. Light bent in the right way for us to see remnants of an ancestor whose name is probably a series of numbers in a spreadsheet. And, we get to see these photons, but not the ones who arrive later or earlier, not the ones caught by an overcast sky. We only see the ones who flew from those stars to this specific spot, as our planet corkscrews around a different star whose eye is currently caught mid-blink. It's infinitesimal, these odds; these stars, their light, and us, lying on a beach in astronomical twilight.
the big game
sun crawls toward a snow-capped ridge. someone’s built snowpeople on top of the frozen pond. the moon hides behind trees doing their morning stretches. a fire pit, half-buried, watches the sky change from blue-black to peach to grey. engines from the highway mix with the yawn from the forest, mix with the whisper from the stream underfoot.
breakfast with a bald eagle
downed spruce trunk under green water a steady current rain drops on their cloud’s reflection on the riverbank a bald eagle beak-deep in a pink salmon carcass under its talon thick fog in the tree line at the foot of the mountain slow as dawn a call from a nearby fir the rhythm of a playing card between bicycle spokes frantic brown wings into the air forsaken salmon flesh on the shore for the seagulls
Find Yourself in the Sky
As you watch the sun set into the Pacific from your picnic blanket on the rocky shore, head resting on a driftwood log, the sky becomes a spectrum. Bright pink around the sun's edge, dark blue above the tree line. People point at features you cannot see. Their confidence makes you look anyway. They see something up there for themselves, something that grounds them— a tether. Some point toward pink, some blue, some in between. You keep looking, but it’s all opaque.
no stars here
rain streets under water torrent of orange leaves northerly wind broken maple branches broken power lines blue glow off the main road tremor in the sky darkened homes silent neighborhood rain
The forest fire outside our house
I lie in bed and turn my head to see your face illuminated by the forest fire outside our house. I ask if you need anything at the store, since I plan on going after work tomorrow to get some bread and apples. You blink a few times, shake your head, say you’re not sure, too tired to think, but will tell me if you think of anything. I kiss you goodnight, tell my phone to close the curtains, block the growing light from the forest fire outside our house.
Sunrise at Bryce Canyon
You're on the edge of a plateau overlooking a valley of hoodoos dusted with remnants of yesterday's snowfall. Predawn light is faint, cold; the air shivers in short gusts of wind. In a century, the platform your feet are on will not be there, eroded by air and water down the cliff face's arches like frames of a cathedral's stained glass windows.
You live your life like nothing happened.
After Gifts of the Crow, by John Marzluff and Tony Angell.
I cannot forget. Whenever I walk by a blue Camry, your voice replays in my head — each hoarse syllable. I see your face in every cedar branch, every streetlamp aura. I cannot forget. I’ve tried waiting years, traveling as far as I can from you — but the past always comes back like the tide on the shore. I cannot forget. I want to scream every well-practiced retort I’ve bottled up — but they all come out as one guttural shout. I cannot forget.
A Calm Lake
Stillness permeated from the lake. Trees stood still, branches stoic in the wind. Actually, it felt like wind died as it approached the lake, or maybe all the molecules found their spaces to be. No evidence of animal life anywhere — no tracks nor droppings or food. Not even insect bites on leaves. You’re sure the ecosystem ought to be suffering, but it’s lush and green.
M. Espinosa 