tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66255307880444887602024-03-12T22:28:37.083-04:00DistillationI am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-72911685187569419632010-09-24T16:22:00.001-04:002010-09-24T16:23:49.291-04:00if knowing me is<div>a fantasy, then you're just</div><div>a page in the book.</div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-23956201644897649032010-04-07T13:45:00.007-04:002010-04-07T13:58:49.925-04:00PanicAnd it's suddenly struck home once again-- <div>The arrow into the heel of Achilles. </div><div>I'm violable, I'm nothing special, I'm real.</div><div><br /><div>Thud.</div><div><br /></div><div>Amphibian arrowheads sinking into my softest skin</div><div>Pry open my thief-knotted secrets,</div><div>Rendering me as pale and unarmored as the fabled beloved</div><div>shining, suddenly, with no Hephaestus to hide behind;</div><div>My glass wall is spear-shattered and my mind is left staggering</div><div>Across bedspreads and library stairs,</div><div>Miming the spastic flight-dance of a turtle with no shell.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's too far to the sea.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lying in the field I'm waiting for the gulls, </div><div>Welcoming coyotes,</div><div>Gathering sand.</div></div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-28883867503796502082010-02-19T12:29:00.001-05:002010-02-19T12:30:53.877-05:00Speech in Praise of Eros<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Although I do not pretend to understand, in the slightest, the nature of Love, it is one of the very few things that I believe in, and I believe in the power of Love with everything that I am. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> I found the realization that this belief is so strong in me to be quite startling, as I am a girl of rather few such intangible convictions. This isn't, of course, to say that I'm apathetic, but rather that the vast majority of the things I feel passionate about are very concrete, unambiguous things—that violence is a terrible thing, that the environment needs to be protected, that certain parts of the government are broken. I am, by nature, somewhat of a literalist, and have incredible difficulty putting my faith in something that I cannot see, or touch, or, at the very least, visualize.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> Love, though, cannot be defined, cannot be measured, cannot be predicted; defying the laws of thermodynamics, it materializes from nothing at the most unexpected times, and often is destroyed just as inexplicably. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> This mercurial quality makes it easy for those not under the spell of Love to be skeptics; I, too, am often plagued by thoughts of <i>why.</i><span style="font-style: normal"> I tend to think of Love as something close to divine, yet my stubbornly scientific brain often badgers me with the rather demystifying idea that Love is nothing more than a chemical response to pleasurable stimuli, especially those that simulate the begetting of progeny—which is, after all, what we are wired, evolutionarily, to do. Our genes tell us to make more of ourselves because the organisms lacking such a drive evaporated from the genetic pool eons ago. However, the less jaded half of my brain counters this with a question: if it is true that Love is nothing more than artificial feelings synthesized by chemicals in our brains, is there anything wrong with that? Is it any less noble if there is no transcendentalism involved, if everything we feel is just mind-games courtesy of our hormones?</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal"> If the happiness a lover feels is the same either way, does the source matter?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal"> To reconcile these two endlessly warring halves of my head, I don't believe it does matter. Even if Love is somehow made less noble by not having some higher thing as its origin, it is still elevated to such great heights by the ecstasy that it brings to two people in love.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-style: normal"> Love breaks down even the skeptic's carefully constructed barriers against the unexplainable, against rash emotions. Love destroys </span>your carefully empty eyes, those words you tried to memorize, and as it fills you it washes away fear, self-doubt, and loneliness, infusing you instead with a wonderfully buoyant sense of belonging that serves as a lifeline to carry you through whatever hardships you may face. It is this quality of love, this uplifting, affirming sense of peace and confidence, that makes me believe in Love, that makes me worship it above all other gods.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">--</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Post-Valentine's Symposium speech. Written at 2am, minimally edited. </p>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-27479603900615189242010-02-07T11:30:00.005-05:002010-02-08T00:57:35.006-05:00Sapphic Fragment 3always, I yearn <b>to give</b><div><b></b>wings to words, <b>yet of the glorious</b></div><div><b></b>resounding cries, <b>of the beautiful and good, you</b></div><div><b></b>force me into a shamed silence <b>of pain, </b>stifling <b>me</b></div><div><b></b>with fear, <b>blame, </b>regret[?]</div><div>for your <b>swollen</b></div><div><b></b>[fingers?] as I let <b>you take your fill. for </b>though <b>my thinking</b></div><div><b></b>arose all self-condemning, it was <b>not thus</b></div><div><b></b>as you accused; nothing <b>is arranged</b></div><div><b></b>erratically, <b>nor </b>erotically, though</div><div><b>all night long, </b>l[a]ying anxious, <b>I am aware</b></div><div><b></b>of your allegations <b>of evildoing;</b></div><div><b></b>but I, in my desire-choked silence, my willful blindness,</div><div>lay blame on <b>other </b>souls, all those deluded <b>minds,</b></div><div><b></b>those cursed, those <b>blessed ones,</b></div><div><b></b>all around whom you spread your downy wings,</div><div>all whom you loved,</div><div>all whom you destroyed</div><div>unknowingly?</div><div>I reject that you'd willingly break us,</div><div>and yet</div><div>the truth lies naked.</div><div>have you no temperance, no shame?</div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div>Creative reconstruction; bold words are the original fragment.</div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-60736759098349986232010-01-24T18:50:00.004-05:002010-01-26T17:38:51.969-05:00ChasedDissipating, dissolving, condensing, coalescing,<div>I stand swaying,<div>cymbals crashing betwixt my ears</div><div>smashing into nothing,</div><div>atomizing silence.</div><div>As I stand dead-in-the-eyes and slowly cracking</div><div>and my body collapses into paperdust and coffee bones,</div><div>I can feel my mind leaking.</div><div>Hard as I try, I haven't the fingers</div><div>to overpower this entropic exploration.</div><div><br /></div><div>A shadow slithers accusingly up the moonlit page</div><div>as busking crickets resuscitate the landscape</div><div>and I shake myself to clarity, shiver the machine to life.</div><div>With my aluminum lungs and pewter heart</div><div>I'll go swimming in your slipstream</div><div>in a mist of safety glass,</div><div>a fog of shattered taillights and adrenaline.</div><div>Racing, racing, cogs and flywheels burning,</div><div>never consuming quickly enough to catch your tragedy.</div><div>Always, I'm one revolution belated:</div><div>just close enough to pick up the pieces,</div><div>never far enough to rebuild.</div></div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-62887861380719587762009-11-25T21:15:00.004-05:002009-12-06T23:22:28.218-05:00WWP10: Forever Lost (Collaboration)<div>Emma and I decided to co-write this one.</div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sw3kzBzcgTI/AAAAAAAAAFI/AfRlEW5cQtk/s1600/Forever_lost.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 171px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sw3kzBzcgTI/AAAAAAAAAFI/AfRlEW5cQtk/s400/Forever_lost.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408230292850508082" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#999999;">(philipstraub.com)</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Once upon a time the trees of this forest were green and lush and living and this land was suffused with eternal daylight from the Sunbirds that we tended, kept in cages made of branches high in the treetops.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span __wave_xml="Once upon a time the trees of this forest were green and lush and living and this land was suffused with eternal daylight from the Sunbirds that we tended, kept in cages made of branches high in the treetops." __wave_annotations="" class="__wave_paste"></span></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">No one ever suspected the new fruit would be our undoing. After all, the birds delighted in them, and as the delicious new food spread, the Sunbirds' songs grew ever more joyous, their light ever brighter and more glourious. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span __wave_xml="No one ever suspected the new fruit. After all, the birds delighted in them, and as the delicious new food spread, the Sunbirds' songs grew ever more joyous, their light ever brighter and more glourious. " __wave_annotations="" class="__wave_paste"></span></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Looking back we could never remember when they first appeared; it seemed they had always been there, fat and golden and hanging from trees that used to grow pomegranates and persimmons and blackcurrants. None of us had ever tasted them, but their smell was bitter and strong, so we left them to the birds.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span __wave_xml="Looking back we could never remember when they first appeared; it seemed they had always been there, fat and golden and hanging from trees that used to grow pomegranates and persimmons (they are these. I like it) .and blackcurrents no i was thinking of something else i think Hmm okay. welllll whatever. (Also, I kind of like the sound of elderberries but those totally don't grow in the same climate, do we care?) None of us had ever tasted them but their smell was bitter and strong, so we left them to the birds." __wave_annotations="157,231,style%2FbackgroundColor,rgb(153%2C+187%2C+0):186,212,link%2Fmanual,http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBlackcurrant:232,276,style%2Fcolor,rgb(0%2C+213%2C+255):276,414,style%2Fcolor,rgb(51%2C+127%2C+229):" class="__wave_paste"></span></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We never planted any of the seeds, ourselves, but the forest floor beneath the birds' cages soon became covered in them, so it was rather inevitable that some of them sprouted. They were the queerest seeds you'd ever seen, too, tiny and star-shaped and glittering in the light like the Sunbirds' shed downy feathers among the leaves.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">After a few weeks they shot up into funny little twisted trees, branches shooting out every which way so fast there were those that swore they'd watched them grow and still we paid them no mind, save perhaps as a curiosity.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">It wasn't until the Sunbirds began to beat themselves against the boughs of their cages that anyone thought to question them. Night and day they'd beat, beat, and the branches of their cages would bend but never break. Then, finally, we stopped to think, and we feared them. We spoke of them often--in whispers, for reasons none could ever really explain, always in whispers--and so word spread quickly when one young man, brave and foolish, announced that he planned to try one.</span></span><span __wave_xml=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><line></line>It wasn't until the Sunbirds began to beat themselves against the boughs of their cages that anyone thought to question them. Night and day they'd beat, beat, and the branches of their cages would bend but never break. Then, finally, we stopped to think, and we feared them. We spoke of them often--in whispers, for reasons none could ever really explain, always in whispers--and so word spread quickly when one young man, brave and foolish, announced that he planned to try one.</span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Although the whole village was stunned by his reckless audacity, no one tried to stop him; everyone was just as curious to find out what would happen. So one day, about a week after he had made his announcement, when we'd all started to whisper that he wouldn't do it, after all, he scrambled high into the canopy, plucked a ripe gold fruit, and took a bite.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">That first bite, he told us later, was as bitter and terrible as he'd expected; but then, as he chewed, something strange and wonderful happened. The fruit changed in his mouth, until it was the sweetest, purest thing he had ever tasted, and before he knew it he'd eaten the whole thing.</span></span><span __wave_xml=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><line></line>That first bite, he told us later, was as bitter and terrible as he'd expected; but then, as he chewed, something strange and wonderful happened. The fruit changed in his mouth, until it was the sweetest, purest thing he had ever tasted, and before he knew it he'd eaten the whole thing.</span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">At first,</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> the fruits seemed to have no effect on the young man. Over the next few days, however, he became more and more restless, eyes constantly darting about, feet relentlessly tapping the ground. He was often seen staring longingly out into the forest, fingers picking nervously at the hem of his shirt. We all kept a careful watch, of course, but one day, for all our scrutiny, he vanished.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We tried to search for him, but everyone was afraid of venturing too far into the forest. Its familiar winding paths had been hopelessly obscured by the strange plants that grew from the fruits' shining seeds--enormous, twisting vines that covered everything else, choking out the ancient trees. At first, they looked innocent enough, but as they thickened they developed weird, bulbous growths that reeked of decay. The plants grew so closely together that even the light from the Sunbirds became dim. </span></span><span __wave_xml=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><line></line>We tried to search for him, but everyone was afraid of venturing too far into the forest. Its familiar winding paths had been hopelessly obscured by the strange plants that grew from the fruits' shining seeds--enormous, twisting vines that covered everything else, choking out the ancient trees. At first, they looked innocent enough, but as they thickened they developed weird, bulbous growths that reeked of decay. The plants grew so closely together that even the light from the Sunbirds became dim. </span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">So we waited, helpless, as the forest grew darker and stranger, the Sunbirds grown few and ragged from their constant assault on the bars of their cages. Months passed, and even the staunchest among us fell into despair, and then finally, one day, the man returned.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">His months away had changed him, almost beyond recognition. His once-neat clothing was tattered and ragged, and hung off him limply, for he was so thin it seemed his bones were all that was left of him; his hair and beard grew long and tangled, grown inextricably together with countless leaves; and, strangest of all, inside his eyes burned something clear and fierce and joyful.</span></span><span __wave_xml=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><line></line>His months away had changed him, almost beyond recognition. His once-neat clothing was tattered and ragged, and hung off him limply, for he was so thin it seemed his bones were all that was left of him; his hair and beard grew long and tangled, grown inextricably together with countless leaves; and, strangest of all, inside his eyes burned something clear and fierce and joyful.</span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">He was raving, we thought, he was mad. We listened in fear as he told us of his journey, describing monstrous things as if they were Eden. His head was filled with the most absurd ideas; he said we were trapped, he said we were caged, he said we had to destroy the Sunbirds' cages. "Set them free"? The man had lost his mind. We couldn't comprehend why the birds would want anything else; we gave them shelter, all the food they could eat, and protection from the cats that stalked the forest for prey. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span __wave_xml="He was raving, we thought, he was mad. We listened in fear as he told us of his journey, describing monstrous things as if they were Eden. His head was filled with the most absurd ideas; he said we were trapped, he said we were caged, he said we had to destroy the Sunbirds' cages. "Set them free"? The man had lost his mind. We couldn't comprehend why the birds would want anything else; we gave them food, shelter, all the food they could eat, and protection from the cats that stalked the forest for prey. " __wave_annotations="" class="__wave_paste"></span></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We set a watch on him once more, doubly vigilant this time, and while we did we began building another cage, bigger than the Sunbirds', big enough for a man. When it was done we hung it high on a vine-choked tree branch. That night when he slept we picked him up, softly, softly, carried him up the tree, and did our best to forget about him.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">But only a day passed before the shaking started.</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">It started quietly, no more than a trembling in the treetops, but it grew more and more violent, accompanied by frenzied shrieks that crescendoed until we had to cover our ears from all the noise--the man's manic screams, the trees' boughs creaking and snapping, and the </span></span><span x="y" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">birds</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, the squawks, whistles, and screeches as the birds battered themselves against their cages in increasing desperation. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span __wave_xml="It started quietly, no more than a trembling in the treetops, but it grew more and more violent, accompanied by frenzied shrieks that crescendoed until we had to cover our ears from all the noise--the man's manic screams, the trees' boughs creaking and snapping, and the birds, the squawks, whistles, and screeches as the birds battered themselves against their cages in increasing desperation. " __wave_annotations="271,276,style%2FfontStyle,italic:" class="__wave_paste"></span></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">After hours of this, hours of fury so great it seemed the forest itself was </span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">trying to shake us free of its back</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, it stopped all at once. We who had thought we would be relieved found instead a great dread growing inside of us, keeping our throats closed tightly and our voices trapped in whispers. Then, as if to echo the silence that had overtaken the forest, pitch black settled around us.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span __wave_xml="After hours of this, hours of fury so great it seemed the forest itself was angry with us or what about: trying to shake us free of its back? maybe? yeah i like that trying to rip itself free from the rocky soil(or maybe something else to that effect? I'm not super happy with that), it stopped all at once. We who had thought we would be relieved found instead a great dread growing inside of us, keeping our throats closed tightly and our voices trapped in whispers. Then, as if to echo the silence that had overtaken the forest, pitch black settled around us." __wave_annotations="76,90,style%2FtextDecoration,line-through:90,149,style%2Fcolor,rgb(51%2C+127%2C+229):149,165,style%2Fcolor,rgb(0%2C+153%2C+0):165,166,style%2Fcolor,rgb(51%2C+127%2C+229):166,211,style%2Fcolor,rgb(0%2C+102%2C+0):211,282,style%2Fcolor,rgb(51%2C+127%2C+229):" class="__wave_paste"></span></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The man descended from the trees, then, and it might have been the surrounding dark but it seemed like something of the fire was gone from his eyes. He told us of how he had freed the Sunbirds, one by </span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">one</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">, a</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">nd how they had flown straight up, up,</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> so far above</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">the</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">miserable forest that he could no longer tell one from another. We are told they fly far and fast each day, in their exuberance, so far that by the end of the day they've come back to the forest, but t</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">he v</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">ines grow so thick now that no light ever reaches us. No other plant grows here, now, so we are forced to eat </span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">e fruit of the plant that was our undoing; only the old and trapped can stay </span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></span></span><span x="y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> for long, and even they grow mad and restless. And that, my child, is how night came to the forest, and why I am going to leave in the morning.</span></span><span __wave_xml="And that, my daughter, is how night came to the forest, and why I am going to leave in the morning." __wave_annotations="0,99,style%2Fcolor,rgb(0%2C+0%2C+0):" class="__wave_paste"></span><span> </span></span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></span></span></div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-17943338970622850372009-11-04T19:04:00.008-05:002009-11-10T00:14:25.292-05:00WWP8: Unhinged<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/SvIWujVf4bI/AAAAAAAAAE4/8YIcgEggG-o/s1600-h/IMG_6253.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/SvIWujVf4bI/AAAAAAAAAE4/8YIcgEggG-o/s400/IMG_6253.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400403892185850290" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#999999;">(samjinks.com)</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's amazing how quickly the brain will revert back to previously embedded memories, how easily sleep can replace the present with a distant Eden that should have been long forgotten. Drifting out of consciousness, the mind in its weariness replaces discomfort with a blissful emptiness. Sleeping, slipping into forgotten skins, the subconscious often errs; the mind, in its wishful folly, refuses to reintegrate perception with reality.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Waking slowly in a foreign place, the disconnect is jarring, as the brain inserts a pleasant memory--a soft bed, the warm arms of a lover--in lieu of the stark truth of an unfamiliar sofa, a bathtub, a hospital bed. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In the presence of prolonged anguish, this slippage begins to intrude upon the fully-conscious mind. When the soul panics, struggling to protect its tender heart from agony, the brain overlays perception with a veneer of better days long past. As this carapace thickens and hardens, sanity and awareness are slowly broken down and replaced by skins shed long ago, until even the cold white steel of a surgeon's table feels like home.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">--</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What the hell even <i>is</i> this. I have no idea.</div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-8900221863664061122009-10-20T18:21:00.003-04:002009-10-26T01:02:19.715-04:00WWP6: Excavation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/St44FmweRDI/AAAAAAAAAEo/m5wpgmIpT-U/s1600-h/excavation.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 265px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/St44FmweRDI/AAAAAAAAAEo/m5wpgmIpT-U/s400/excavation.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394811072590791730" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#999999;">(www.jamesjean.com)</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#999999;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was a lonely life, but it was hers. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">She loved her forest dearly, of course; it's not that she had ever dreamed of leaving.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Even in the dead of night, when the darkness seemed to breathe, heavy air pulsing, pressing like a stranger against the nape of her neck, even when every sound was scared silent by the pressure and the fog, even then she would just wrap the smokey tendrils tighter around her naked body, pulling the cloud across her dripping candle like a funeral shroud, smiling into the misty caress until the sun's fury burned the vapors away.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's true that she wasn't overly fond of the sun, either. Although she understood that forests need light to grow, she resented the way his relentless rays washed all the mystery from the shadows of the trees, scouring away uncertainties, revealing details but removing questions.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">No, it was the twilight she loved the best, that in-between-time when the moon waltzed up the sky, gracefully forcing the heavy, reluctant sun below the hills.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">During this dance of light and shadow, night and day, she would roam her forest haven, wandering, searching for someone-- anyone. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">She'd tried forming her own companions from the woods around her. She'd made a pair of slender hounds, carefully stitched and sculpted from wilting petals and dying leaves, stuffed with loam and the souls of the moths circling her head. They ran beside her as the sun sank, faithful and silent as shadows, but still she searched in ever widening rings that grew with the hearts of her trees, searched for someone to share in the fleeting beauty of a spiderweb at dawn, its gossamer strands beaded with perfect drops of glittering dew, someone to share in her tiny circle of candlelight and read the patterns in the wheeling stars.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Still, she knew that if her spiraling exploration ever reached the edge of her sylvan domain, she'd never set foot beyond the treeline.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was a lonely life, but it was hers. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">--</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This needs some major editing. </div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-73358377343984435682009-10-11T19:10:00.005-04:002009-11-10T00:10:08.037-05:00WWP4: Passive<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/StJmMJu-a3I/AAAAAAAAAEY/BLF9uWPeaBM/s1600-h/2-31.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/StJmMJu-a3I/AAAAAAAAAEY/BLF9uWPeaBM/s400/2-31.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391484062873316210" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#999999;">(buttercupfestival.com)</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sometimes it strikes me suddenly, the static.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Like the trees and the grass I am grounded,</div><div style="text-align: left;">Rooted deep in the fertile loam</div><div style="text-align: left;">Reaching down to unyielding bedrock </div><div style="text-align: left;">Sitting motionless, </div><div style="text-align: left;">Day by day </div><div style="text-align: left;">Waiting</div><div style="text-align: left;">Always waiting </div><div style="text-align: left;">For someone with the gift of freedom</div><div style="text-align: left;">Of motion</div><div style="text-align: left;">Of flight...</div><div style="text-align: left;">For someone to bring me news of <i>elsewhere</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i></i>To tell me fantastic tales of that which my eyes will never see</div><div style="text-align: left;">Someone to fly back to me and sing of the sky </div><div style="text-align: left;">Lying upon the world like heavy wet cotton</div><div style="text-align: left;">Wrinkled and lazy and blue. </div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-23709716861990524962009-09-29T18:32:00.007-04:002009-10-06T00:18:33.514-04:00WWP3: Possessions, Possessions<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/SsKLAGn0NZI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/yFPlBmIkb3o/s1600-h/Screen+shot+2009-09-29+at+6.24.28+PM.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 399px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/SsKLAGn0NZI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/yFPlBmIkb3o/s400/Screen+shot+2009-09-29+at+6.24.28+PM.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387020938182407570" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#999999;">(maggietaylor.com)</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">No one ever quite figured out the flood of '47. It wasn't really the intensity (although that was quite astonishing) or the duration (though three weeks was no blink-of-the-eye). No, it was definitely the fact that not a drop of rain fell from the sky, nor did a river, swollen from some torrential downpour far upstream, burst its banks to overwhelm the fertile fields. No, this flood was different.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This flood rose <i>up. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It came seeping up from the grass and the gravel, collecting first in tiny droplets, then slowly pooling, puddles to ponds to lakes, a river in every avenue. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">--</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Gaaaaaah short and unfinished AGAIN. Also, way to barely connect to the picture at all. Again.</div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-27689189230864929072009-09-28T16:18:00.014-04:002009-11-10T00:08:30.244-05:00Weekly Writing Prompt 2: Reaching<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/SsEdeQEOZWI/AAAAAAAAAEI/MIaUlI66XDg/s1600-h/Screen+shot+2009-09-28+at+4.32.07+PM.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/SsEdeQEOZWI/AAAAAAAAAEI/MIaUlI66XDg/s400/Screen+shot+2009-09-28+at+4.32.07+PM.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5386619034857792866" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#999999;">(thelotuseater.com)</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#551A8B;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#551A8B;"><br /></span></span></div><div><br /></div></span></div><div>Sitting alone at night, I can feel you beside me in the prickling silence, feel your hands ghosting over my skin. I look to you and the world dissolves around me, narrowing, simplifying, concentrating around your figure. My eyes see nothing else. <div><br /></div><div>Love fluctuates like mercury; as the summer fades to autumn I find myself beginning to doubt your solidity. Anxious, I try to wait it out. Petrified, I can do nothing else; I am frozen--longing, hoping, wishing for your return--and when I close my eyes I can feel you beside me, never close enough.</div><div><br /></div><div>The land is bare and dead, its beauty now lying in desolation... a stark contrast to the joyous vitality of summer. I wait ever-longer, never truly believing you'll come back to me, but far too terrified of solitude to leave. </div></div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-57042812220250030612009-09-15T11:12:00.009-04:002009-10-06T00:16:42.904-04:00Weekly Writing Prompt 1: Girl in a Bee Dress<div style="text-align: left;">Emma and I have decided to share writing prompts every week so we don't stop. We both write on the prompt, with a deadline of midnight the following Sunday--finished or not. This week's is a painting by Maggie Taylor.</div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sq-wpIgxJEI/AAAAAAAAADU/UBHCKtjlkZU/s400/1-Girl+in+a+Bee+Dress.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381714300437079106" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 394px; " /></span></div><div><br /></div><div> The sun rose crimson that morning, into a sky as thick and golden as the richest clover honey. I woke with a feeling of finality, fatality, emptiness. I rose with the sun, the two of us mirrored--slow, silent, moving to a timeless, ceaseless rhythm we had no power to oppose. Padding softly on calloused toes, I stalked the dawn through the foothills. Heavy shafts of golden sunlight broke around me as I emerged onto the floodplain, following the footsteps of my mother, my grandmother, my whole line of apian girls. Between my fingers I carried--oh so carefully--the first flower of spring, a glorious zinnia as brilliant a magenta as I'd ever seen.</div><div><br /></div><div> When I reached the shore the sun had reached its zenith, blazing down upon my naked skin with a joy it had waited the whole long winter to release. I sank my toes into the icy embrace of the ocean, grounding myself in the rough sand. Raising the flower's flawless petals to the sky, I closed my eyes and sang, pouring my soul into carrying the lilting melody across the water, calling, calling, calling with every fiber of my being. I sang until the sky had turned an evening's periwinkle, the sun lazily sliding behind a thick curtain of clouds.</div><div><br /></div><div> My toes were the first to sense them coming, tingling with the deep humming that vibrated through the sand as my eyes scanned the gathering stormclouds on the horizon. Gradually, one cloud seemed to thicken, shifting restlessly and growing ever larger; the relentless hum filled my ears as the cloud filled the sky. The swarm swirled around me in dizzying eddies, the drone of millions of gossamer wings drowning out even the crashing of the waves, as countless fuzzy bodies drifted in the foam. </div><div><br /></div><div> There were too many.</div><div><br /></div><div> Every year, fewer and fewer flowers spread their petals on the hillsides for the bees... the land was dying. </div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div>Yeah... this isn't anywhere close to done. Or even edited at all. Oh well. Maybe eventually I'll come back to it, but I kind of doubt it. </div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-31226770559692782222009-08-12T14:24:00.004-04:002009-08-12T14:36:33.020-04:00Rough SilkRibbons, ribbons, ribbons; my hair, your fingers, my face. Laced between our outspread arms, silken cords of what-nows and I-wonder-ifs stretch taut through cellophane silence that freezes our limbs and stifles our words. Eye-to-eye and breath-to-breath, our lungs are paralyzed in empty anticipation of speech; we are waiting waiting waiting on the verge of confession, petrified of refusal but hanging heavy and unsteady on fraying bands of wanting. Your eyes twitch with unspoken questions as I stand-- colder than I ever meant, than I ever wanted to be-- with a face that leaves no room for queries, but a gaze that begs answers. Plaiting strands of barbed wire and organza across your shoulders, I weave patternless purposeless tangles in a fool's attempt at intimacy, wanting only to find clarity and comfort in the opacity of crumpled ties, in burgundy ribbons across your spine.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-63481210768910056812009-08-09T12:37:00.001-04:002009-08-09T12:40:39.399-04:00BareI haunt the sharpest place in the world, where the trees ring with astounding clarity before my eyes, but slip, shivering, out of focus at the edges of my view; they slide into a vast, unknowable darkness of rustling wings and shifting shadows. The curling smoke spiraling tantalizingly upward carries abjection, remorse, anxiety to the sky, leaving behind only being. Let the fire burn, oxidize your raiment, expose yourself-- let it go. Forget to remember. Strip down to your bones; stand calcified in the omnipresent, omnipotent blackness, close your eyes. One, two, three hundred heartbeats pass before you regain sight, eyes open to the ever-watching, ever-patient trunks. Hopelessly dwarfed, your eyes turn upward to the great velvet bowl of the sky, as it sinks slowly downward to envelop you... swim amongst the stars, love, and condense, brighten; let yourself burn.<br /><br />I'll watch from down below, ossified in my ring of stones, roots pushing ever farther, holding fast-- the waxen fingers on my weary boughs reaching, reaching as you shine ever-distant: cosmic and unreachable.<br /><br />When there's nothing left to burn, come back for me-- inflame me, engulf me in your silvery conflagration. Constellations, we'll fly.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-28492972765425661242009-08-08T15:08:00.003-04:002009-08-08T15:20:50.379-04:00TravelWe're on a train in the night,<br />accelerating with such a solid relentlessness<br />it sometimes seems we'll never be able to stop,<br />we'll just barrel on through the coaldust darkness forever,<br />ghosting through the skeletons of ironworks<br />and the shuddering bones of dying industry,<br />watching civilization level and smother the landscape,<br />watching flora and fauna slowly but inexorably claim it back,<br />watching the atmosphere oxidize the shining lines of the city's arteries,<br />watching each capillary turn to rust,<br />watching the blood rattle tiredly on.<br />Bleed it out, bleed it out, bleed it out.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-30978649459688433912009-07-01T02:57:00.002-04:002009-07-01T03:00:30.796-04:00Twosunbaked and wasted<br />the beach holds all my secrets<br />digging fingers reveal all<br /><br />--<br /><br />pull me in, hide me<br />kiss my lips, my sanguine hips<br />clothed in thistledownI am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-87096002045415588942009-06-22T00:37:00.002-04:002009-06-22T01:28:23.597-04:00It's been too long since I've written haikuthe smell of the night<br />makes me want to run until<br />I can't get back home<br /><br />--<br /><br />you are embarrassed<br />and I'm just amusing, so<br />why try to hide it?<br /><br />--<br /><br />funny how sleeping<br />makes everything go numb<br />and fade to fiction<br /><br />--<br /><br />it's an eraser<br />or an ice storm, blurring to<br />surreality<br /><br />--<br /><br />I'm fading, aching<br />leaning, with lights flickering<br />I sink into you<br /><br />--<br /><br />I miss your music<br />even though now it only<br />makes me all empty<br /><br />--<br /><br />exhaustion, you see<br />is the most addictive type<br />of psychotropicI am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-78033820253602003602009-06-22T00:09:00.002-04:002009-06-22T00:19:24.436-04:00This is obsoleteWe are floating on a picnic table in the sky beneath a harlequin moon. We drift out over the edge of the precipice, singing, laughing, mendaciously carefree. Every smile condenses a little more-- the moon is twitching, leering down from the clouds, the silhouettes of sedentary ghouls. The trees are melting as the air begins to hum, sounds dripping past hearing, into pure feeling. I stave off jealousy with denial, but you are phosphorous. The night is vibrating as I pull you ever closer, eyes shut tight against your plurality, against nothing wrong, against everyone else. I hide truths in lines of ruby down my back, absorbing, mending, darning all the loose threads in the stories I tell you with a lunar grin. The sky ripples disconcertingly as the crew of our picnic table/boat/zeppelin shifts uneasily. A lion roars through the reeds and I shiver with wanting, with waiting, with never-having. I steel myself to take what I can, give nothing back, and smile like the moon.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-69542790048757496862009-06-22T00:05:00.004-04:002009-06-22T00:19:39.252-04:00This is oldShe stalks ever nearer, raindrop footsteps on the soaking grass, shadowdancing, cloyingly coy, unreachable but never quite unsensible. Her taunting tainting eyelids, dark with laughing, shining with flirtatious sidestepping, hide nothing; I don't need to see your eyes to know I'm being played with. Roadmap toes caressing the mud, she waits to run. I tie on my blindfold and give chase.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-59907194027062829532009-05-24T13:54:00.002-04:002009-05-24T14:26:19.721-04:00InsomniaI'm mesmerized by fireworks and thunderclouds, lying on a sinking island in a swamp of navy and sepia, alert as you sleep, crushed, failing, falling as you rise. Overcome, as always, by hesitation, there's something hooked behind my solar plexus that won't let me go.<br /><br />Caught unanchored in the center of a counter-current cyclone, I'm adrift. Catch me, my cavity; collapse.<br />Pure lymph, pure ache, purely hollow.<br />Collapse.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-34260467344529516032009-05-04T15:42:00.020-04:002009-05-04T16:01:18.315-04:00AP Portfolio Concentration<div style="text-align: center;">[To be read sequentially. Click a photo to enlarge.]<br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9Id2T38PI/AAAAAAAAADE/YADQ3GJUJPQ/s1600-h/1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9Id2T38PI/AAAAAAAAADE/YADQ3GJUJPQ/s400/1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332060161462235378" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9IWH-rTgI/AAAAAAAAAC8/1OMT0H1RfVc/s1600-h/2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9IWH-rTgI/AAAAAAAAAC8/1OMT0H1RfVc/s400/2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332060028766211586" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9INYSGcCI/AAAAAAAAAC0/P8Gw8eEbAow/s1600-h/3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9INYSGcCI/AAAAAAAAAC0/P8Gw8eEbAow/s400/3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332059878523826210" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9IHei4fmI/AAAAAAAAACs/xFqrK-Vd8-Q/s1600-h/4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9IHei4fmI/AAAAAAAAACs/xFqrK-Vd8-Q/s400/4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332059777125613154" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9IA6nU7II/AAAAAAAAACk/IKdbNfi5gNE/s1600-h/5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9IA6nU7II/AAAAAAAAACk/IKdbNfi5gNE/s400/5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332059664401362050" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9H4TF-3lI/AAAAAAAAACc/IvsAk5Srd7c/s1600-h/6.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9H4TF-3lI/AAAAAAAAACc/IvsAk5Srd7c/s400/6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332059516353568338" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HwQJXf_I/AAAAAAAAACU/SBMRdoukvLM/s1600-h/7.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HwQJXf_I/AAAAAAAAACU/SBMRdoukvLM/s400/7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332059378123505650" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HnUzdESI/AAAAAAAAACM/hVoCpG6SZyk/s1600-h/8.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HnUzdESI/AAAAAAAAACM/hVoCpG6SZyk/s400/8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332059224754950434" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HdRxxfDI/AAAAAAAAACE/LTZOv1Dj1H8/s1600-h/9.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HdRxxfDI/AAAAAAAAACE/LTZOv1Dj1H8/s400/9.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332059052143901746" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HThkXi8I/AAAAAAAAAB8/aAczzlL1Wew/s1600-h/10.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HThkXi8I/AAAAAAAAAB8/aAczzlL1Wew/s400/10.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332058884583951298" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HIUqkARI/AAAAAAAAAB0/OeOB-stzqbk/s1600-h/11.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9HIUqkARI/AAAAAAAAAB0/OeOB-stzqbk/s400/11.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332058692141711634" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9G_LUfR9I/AAAAAAAAABs/fkWbTX-1yEE/s1600-h/12.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4XiEvwYDHtc/Sf9G_LUfR9I/AAAAAAAAABs/fkWbTX-1yEE/s400/12.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332058535014385618" border="0" /></a>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-34920407431643352672009-02-25T22:25:00.001-05:002009-02-25T22:55:10.628-05:00Cold<div>We are traveling forever, crushing the ground with fibers so much more efficient than gears, sanguine levers greener than cylinders, feet more silent than wheels.<br /><br /></div><div>We run endlessly across Antarctica, and the only sound is our breath freezing into glittering clouds of ice.<br /><br /></div><div>We laugh soundlessly, and the night sparkles. </div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-59591667823674841022009-02-24T13:14:00.002-05:002009-02-24T13:27:20.241-05:00EndolymphThe walls are breathing as I lie tilted and tumbling slowly in the cotton darkness. I can feel your arms around me like ghosts, cold with waiting. Lids close down and the universe shifts twenty seven point four degrees left and sixteen degrees back right as I jerk ahead and stumble over a crack in the floor that your dripping faucet forgot to mention as I crept across the cramped and crumbling tiles in search of a patch of air to place my potted plant, somewhere where the walls don't steal all of the air to sigh it out, chilled and empty, against my blind and blinking wrists-- pale, taut and trembling, always waiting. I focus my retinae to needlepoints to create a tiny one-moment, one-centimeter void, a lack of sensation, a relief on all fronts; potassium gates locked, pumps off. Sighing out to acidosis, concentration dropping, fingers twitching, pulse racing and nerves crackling. My bones release sounds and stiffness into the soft shoegazed abyss, but they leave energy with no will, windows with no shades to cover the unfortunate exhibition.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-46019259332824822492009-02-05T08:44:00.004-05:002009-09-29T02:00:39.749-04:00Winter<div>I'm getting lost in static snowdrifts<br />Waiting, wandering, shivering<br />Straining my tired eyes, trying<br />Trying to see through the miasmatic flurries<br />The frozen fury.<br />I can't feel my toes<br />Can't bend my knees, anymore<br />As roots creep down, twining<br />Out of my hips, my shoulders<br />Sinking into the ice, into the asphalt, bulging, twisting<br />So<br />Very<br />Slowly.<br />Lethargic nostalgic squeezing<br />Unnoticed, unconcerned.<br />Undiscovered.<br />Steadfast and wondering, I wait<br />Beneath the clandestine streetlamp<br />With my back to the night and my face to the wind.<br />Squinting, tensing, waiting<br />But you're never coming, are you?</div>I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6625530788044488760.post-88634325500950559062009-01-18T22:21:00.002-05:002009-01-18T22:34:23.044-05:00We were turning cartwheels, barefoot in the snowIt was a year ago today, though I'm sure you don't remember, that you offered me your gridlocked graphite heart stapled between a plaintive fold of green. It said everything I'd denied in our twisted fingers and heavy heads; everything I refused to look in the face drilled defiantly into my ears. Maybe I was stupid, maybe I've always been far too literal, but I made myself believe it in my frenzied eyes and the lines down my back.<br /><br />Yeah, I'm pathetic--yet I still don't know whether I'm regretful... but everything is emptier than ever before.I am a tree-rabbit.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01604190995496833673noreply@blogger.com0