Wolcum Yole
These old haunts
Dark at daybreak
and before the dinner bell
Still, still, still
Bray hearts of beasts
No God or sin
To spin the dial back again

Wolcum Yole
A radiant friend, a wick
Lighting season’s edge
Laughter, a friend
Under my ribs
Staring down the fear
Of doing it lonely
In bitten wind

Wolcum Yole
I will sit with you
In the dark
I will sit with you
As your mother before
I will sit with you
As your winter heart kindles
Into beds of coals
A blessing for your life
I will sit with you
In the dark
Until we circle ‘round again.

The streets run purple
the morning after a big snow
Each man, woman, & child grab shovel
and tend to what needs tending
The tractors come from field to town
lending to what needs lending

Someone on our block
never know exactly who
dug all the mailboxes clean to the curb
Another brushed all the car windows
I walk the dog past the neighbors
holding their backs and catching their breath
We always exchange hellos
Not Midwest Nice
Just I See You Here, Alive Today
Even the dog gives an assured nod and short wag
Bless you and yours

Bud hires someone to clear our alley
He used to own all this land to the East
He keeps The Pines growing strong
Don died last Winter
He was the first to greet our daughter
On her first day home
Now his daughter cares for his home
And so the circle goes.

A rush of wind, maybe 15 mph (?), wakes me. It’s November, the windows are open, and still, two-months-ago tomatoes cling tight to the vine. Daughter’s breath on my face and dog’s breath at my feet synchronize. The man of the house has gone to chase some snaggletooth sirens, at least they’re Wisconsin native.

My Uncle says this family lives by the water, as the tears roll slow along the rock’s edge. More and more I thank whatever stars keep us feeling the changes. It’s the women and our gray eyes, like the clouds in November.

For now, you can catch a brown in town or rainbow in the sky in Mazomanie. Just beyond the ghostland dairies, now lie beef cattle. Here today, gone tomorrow. Just waiting for those big computers to show up on our doorstep with their tins of caviar and champagne on a particularly shitty Sunday. Spouting in tongues, wrapping their sick fuck fingers around our already cinched waists.

Everyone needs a secret spot that you utter no sensibilities about. The folks who haven’t found theirs yet – there’s no hum about ’em. They don’t catch a thing, and if they do it’s all luck and no thanks. Every catch requires a sacrifice. Stoke the fire, take a charcoal bit and brandish your ceremonial stripes. Then gut a piece of yourself and bury it in the riverbed.

In the beginning, it’s all about making good trouble, getting your lines wet, feeding the oxytocin before sunrise. Nothing hits harder then a muskellunge rounding the lower left on the 8. But somewhere along the way, it gets lost in translation – as most innocence does. Suddenly we’re all jiving for more, sooner, and feeding on scraps to keep the engine alive.

Last year, the creek blew out. You could feel the 2018 PTSD in the air, in neighbors faces, and decisions to sell, sell, sell. The fish didn’t bat an eye. Last year, my creek blew out, and all the years before that, and still my veins run straight to Old Wisconsin.

Challenge accepted
& with that, shadows appear
Each one a figure in the night
Covering our view of the stars
Slipping in through our ears, eyes, nose
Head and shoulders still attached.

A movie reels
Picking up where we left off
What large body of water do we cross
In our wonky canoe?
Built when we were five
Out of the wood
From our dreamcatcher.

It’s lasted this long
Strong like bull
In baggy clothes
Draw no attention,
To new curves
Play no games.

Then find a beau
Who isn’t afraid of
SQUAWKS & HOLLERS
Sits us down by a crick
& introduces us back
Becoming lost in the lives
Of newts or Greatest Blue Heron.

Is this life just “Amazing Grace” on repeat?
– Lost and found – Lost and found – Lost and found –
As long as it’s Aretha’s 1972 live recording
As long as a good friend plucks us up
Hangs us out to dry
Waits until we smell like fresh air
& takes us off the line.

A palindrome for the ages, 23.32.
The G.O.A.T., 1991
Feet in the water and head full of dirt, 1.17.

Waterside
Neither left or right
On heart & belly
Due North & South
Separate, until they meet.

re: Introduction
There are times to know. Those stuck to picture frames, blood on the sheets, letters with old addresses to places not worth revisiting. Stop trying to know everything, I think unassuredly. It’s a losing game. Instead, we celebrate waking with the sun on dogs fur, with memories still in the stronghold.
I fear, holding too closely to sand. The stuff stuck counting our emptying time. Or, missing the indigo in the rainbow, the part that not sought after, the almost forgotten.

Glory glory
When that bass hits —
Thicc air wavey
That juicy, peach of a second
That sweet second kiss
Better than the first
You expect it but it’s still
July 4th on your tongue
And two front teeth

Glory glory
Look what you got —
A downhome girl
Forgot where she came from
But deep squats in the rutabagas
Picks a tune
Rings the bell for supper

Glory glory
Look what he done–
Went for the undercut
Shocked the gods right outta their beds
Built himself a boat of old ghosts
Tarry, he did not
Sought and found
A lionheart
Masquerading as a seagoat

Glory glory be
Another day together–
Summoning spirits
Checking in with the
Conscious concierge
We getting room service
And a pert near summer sunrise
On a midwinter moon.

Convinced that Kitchari (kich-uh-ree) is the answer, considering how tough it’s been to find the mung beans. The best things are the hardest to find.

Trash goes out on Tuesdays. The blinds open everyday at 7:33 am for the satiated mutt on the futon. Girlie wimpers for her blind boyfriend, just kitty corner.

A bathtub gratitude practice where you thank your legs for the miles and arms for the embraces. Because who knows?

A daily check-in, sometimes multiple times a day, with 3 witches I know. Like AA, but more cosmic and full of recipes.

What I thought was Clematis was actually Wisteria. Corrected by my small neighbor, the planter. We didn’t know if it would, but it did. Of course it did, in August 2022!

What a dream! To know the bends of the river better than the names of the roads.

The best sound: light snow settling on a window sill. The best sight: someone finding their stomping ground, their tribe.

Death on the kitchen counter most mornings now. Mice are turning inward, but without tenacity.

A refusal to believe as the light goes out, life goes out.

I visit Baby Lois. Clean her grave. Let the mutt sniff her worn corners. She seems like a June Gemini, most likely cuspy. It’s unclear. Had she lived we would have shared a nightly G + T on the porch, toasting the coming New Year.

Year 3 in leather
Lining your front, left pocket – a gift from my father
Weathered
Tethered to bedposts
Benevolent grin – tough, but sure
Cinched on the 3rd hole – prong adjusting by year
The same saddle since 2008

Walked in fields of alfalfa – better in boots
Adjusted the bolo snug against the solar plexus – a gift to your father
Wizened
Shaved away years- a lifetime embellished
Thickened skin – two hearts not lost or last
Year 3 in leather, a promise together.

The summoning of the simplest breath from the lungs and holding it just a little longer than normal. It is the quietest space where the heart pounds –harder still. Then a loon howls for you.

Do others yo-yo between existential danger and lightning bugs? Or tiger lilies? Or mammatus rainclouds? I see the shimmer in a toothless, almost one-year-old and I sink my nose in their sweaty cheek and think “I want nothing more.”

My neighbor across the cemetery tells me about her smoke bush. The 9-foot budding giant that looks like a sea urchin against the sky and the next day my rights are taken away. I wish I didn’t know about “bad touch”. The money that’s spent to cover those up. The artificial poison they’re shooting out of their mouths and cocks. The only way to win is to take. So I will from them. I will stash and gather, save and trade, spend every dollar on a piece of artwork a college student made from their old baby clothing. This, just so as not to line any pockets except my other hungry constituents.

If I die giving birth to a new hope someday, know that I did not die without trying.

A friend talked about unschooling for her children. I would love to do the same. Unschool myself, be rid of the concepts stuck to my flesh. What sage works best with the hidden tattoos life has branded upon you? A big picture, right-brained, illogical, slow reader, reactive sentimentalist, who runs from hard. I’m tired, aren’t you? Categorization of everyone. Fuck it all. FUCK IT ALL. Stash and gather, save and trade, line the pockets of every person you come in contact with. Tell them they are everything other then what they’ve been told they are to someone else. We’ll cry together, eat a nourishing meal, drink Sekahnjebin, and say goodbye to whatever peg you were screwed into. Burn it down.

What happens when you mix earth and fire? Rage and hope.

It’s become a tradition around the onset of my annual age change to fill the feeders. Gabe reminds me that I need to start the year out with sparkling equipment before adding the seed. So I clean. Every inch, every remnant of yesteryear’s bird consortium is erased. They dry in the chilly sun, because the temperature is always swinter on or around my birthday. Sometimes the weather is pretty enough to trick you into thinking it’s pleasant enough to wear less. A foolish time indeed.

My friend @jeccasorgz posted a TedTalk of philosopher Emily Levine who, at the time, was dying of stage 4 lung cancer and chose to forego treatment. She said, “You’re given this enormous gift of life. You enrich it best you can and then you give it back.” I paused the video and sat back with dribbling tears. I just turned 31 the day before and this birthday felt different. It entered in heavy with built-in melancholy. World events? Life events? Grief? Uncertainties? Moldy smells in my duplex? Then suddenly, and thanks to Emily, a replenishment of grace; a private, quiet breath of peace.

The chickadees are the first to flock to test out the goods. We’ll experiment with this season’s migrators. Buy a couple select varieties to entice a warbler, oriole, or maybe, just maybe an indigo bunting. One can only hope these days.

More often than not I think about my “chosen” family in Fort Collins. Last week’s excursion to the West only strengthened that rapture. Spending most of one’s 20s in a place with only people you’ve cultivated selfdom and love is something worth saving and spreading. Emily Levine ended, “Thank you for making my life real.” And with another notch in the belt, there couldn’t be anything truer to me.

Thank you. I love you.

Five pots were parsed out between us. Each contained two to three bulbs trimmed to the quick. Clumps of dead leaves and cobwebs marked the months since they’d seen sun. Would they miss their other terracotta compatriots? Scientists have proven plants can communicate with each other. Maybe they sensed my roots to their previous owner. It was the last thing I carried out from her home on the hill.

Can plants speak to spirits?

I love that plants are choosy. “Get behind what I need or I ain’t giving you nothing.” What a cause! Thrive or die. I got them home and immediately cleaned out the debris, saturating liberally at first. Awaken, don’t drown. Within a week, two leaves broke through the papery sheath of hibernation. My water regimen and coffee table light brought forth the “thrive”. I added in occasional morning caresses and a few words of encouragement before the 8am sunshine flowed in. Two of the three eager bulbs sprouted up within a few days, while the runt bided its time. Now she stands tall with a perfect bud developing its vibrancy. In just a few weeks, on St. Patrick’s Day, Patricia would have turned 97. Instead of green, she’ll be wearing red.