A rabid bat. A spasm of birds, separating in blue on blue. Nostalgia. This day, only before and away. Away. Take a lower look to all that has fallen. An intrusion of soil, separating in green on green. Shards of absence and hunger. A rewriting of us. Look. There is a calling. You are pulled towards a serrated remembering. The cutting in and cutting out of garden shadows. Ghostly abstractions that struggle to find a host.
Look at her, my love, proof of peace. All cascade, all swoon, all grace. She dines by moonlight, and backflips, curling through this blue sea of my true origin. She is all cotton candy. She is all feather and tentacle. She is all bramble and seagrass and moss and weed. This girl is a shipwreck. This girl now breathes under water.
The cul-de-sac is an archipelago. Each continental fragment host to another secret variant of a species thought so known. In this night, the lawn is not the lawn, but the deep rush and swell of aquamarine encircling. Our young dwell in trees, their laughter fracturable by birdsong and dragon tongue. Care should therefore be taken, for such formations are fragile and each delicate enclave, each tectonic displacement marks clear and pure on this strange map. If the field log makes note of a mystical voice, a creative heart, the turquoise amulet at her throat, the red saliva copiously lubricating the dragon’s jaw, the tiny carnelian breast of the unnested bird, will there exist any true understanding of pockets of joy, renewal, grace? Will the moon rupture the cool waters of the boulevard looping beyond? Will anyone guess or know what is contained in the scattered crash of this tidal crescent? A landscape internalized. Dense and saturated. Gush and roll of distant waves. Will the delicate displacement incite growth? Wisdom? Streaks of lush rain spilling over the megafauna? When the questions are put to her, she generously gives the long answers. A slight shift on the sofa, and a sideways smiling sigh that says she knows you’ll love everything she has to offer.
“It wasn’t the armadillo’s fault. Just a case of wrong place, wrong, well, you know,” she said. “We had to do it though. The way it just wandered in. Besides, we hadn’t eaten in days. We live like this sometimes. Why do you think the coyotes stopped eating all the dogs in the subdivision? Why do you think the cats can prowl the backyards in peace once again? Why do you think the deer have stopped stalking your petunias? We keep watch. You might not think it, living here, but it isn’t always easy getting to the supermarket. So, well, we just keep watch.”
The persistent magnetism of limestone resolves a deep need for perspective. The muddy perch and thrust of egret wing and falling rock sweep and surrender. Each glittering shell explodes beyond the bluff. And see how the years have sustained us. Always trust that I will hold you bright as every shining blessing. If the bird could emerge from the Great River now, would it think to eat us all, or would it bask in wonder, stalk us in disbelief? We rest as even the storm refuses to cross the river to disturb us. We hold fast to the easy burning of these years to know we are more than one day, one season. We gather folded in tones and shadows unknown to us. A weathered pink. The tattered green. The softened gray. You are the lovely ones who saved me then, and save me still. We are carried to a peace beyond shadows and color. We let loose the secrets inside us. Our vast luminous love. This is how family is found, made, claimed. Once home, the hummingbird touches my ankle, knee, thigh. The blue meerkat stands still and tall to open the door to now, and to the still and silent sadness of the long letting go.
Dear Suburbia 