Her Hardest Hue to Hold

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. -Robert Frost We decided it was the best place to study flamingos, but camping was

I Checked and It Was Still There

“But as they burned, disappearing irrevocably one after the other, you stopped believing that there was any purpose in a book’s existence. Or perhaps the only one to have worked out their purpose was the Sarajevan author and bibliophile who, instead of using expensive firewood, warmed his fingers last winter on the flames of Dostoevsky,

Choice Words

We are at Boots, Etc., exit 149 when driving South in Georgia towards New Orleans. We watch as a man hammers hand-wrought silver tips onto Henry’s new red leather boots. The man uses shining little nails, he squints, he moves his hands as delicately as a pianist, as a mother braiding hair. As he works behind

End of Decade

(translated from Portuguese)   31 December 2020 Unborn moon of winter: There is no more I to summon you. I’ve passed through the oceanic waters of the continent And see you now – it is summer.    The beings who roam and vest Phrases and verbs and ecstasys Live, moon! Live! Like me.    The

Spleen

The spring and I are strangers now, extending hungry glances  through fat green stems and the blush of fallen berries— those beloved friends  of the pilgrim’s foot.   More and more I slip into the soil to read the pages of rock.  Retreating to the muddy infinite, I spy the fleshy leviathan,  earthworm tonguing a

Speaking Eryngos

The sea burning,  the heads of blued Thistles nodding now,   You are drift   Ing across the dry grassy   Field of perception.    Above me, Humming with the   Softness of hands in mud,  Words wing and land,  Clutching the branch of hope That this is finally a sign.   The ache between the dunes, tilted  Towards