Keeper of rings inside rings,
Clock-maker of leaf-light,
Archivist of every breath that ever brushed bark:

Hear the scratch of a moss-stained claw.
It is Skittles, smallest of petitioners,
who counts time in grubs and promises.
With a teaspoon pilfered from the silver of forgotten mothers
he stirs the soil at your roots and says:

“Let the tall ones remember.”

Remember the boy named Trevenen,
whose tears once watered these giants.
Remember the sisters whose names are songs
Cinnamon, her friends, and Rain-Eyes
and keep their laughter ink-fresh in the cambium.

Grant to Skittles the courage of fungus,
the stealth of shadow-rings,
the patience of sap that refuses to hurry.

And when axes march with maps of efficiency,
settle your ancient hush upon the blades;
bend seconds into centuries
until the men of bright orange forget why they came.

So may the sequoias stand unnumbered,
their stories untidy but alive;
so may the goblin’s scars learn the shape of healing;
so may time itself turn its face toward mercy –
for a millennium,
for a moment,
for now.

By spoon, by bell, by mirror, by button, let it be so.

blessed be the rooter
the wallower
the groaner in dusk

blessed the mud-slick flank
the cracked hoof
the snout that knows where rot becomes ripe

i piss where i please
i fuck when the hunger says
i shit and it steams
and i stay beside it

i am not clean
i am not light
i am not above anything

but i know
what goes in
and i know
what comes out

i was made before the blade
before the word
before the shame
and i do not forget

blessed be the sow
who bore me squealing
blessed the runt
blessed the stink
blessed the lash that taught me no prayer
only breath

you may wash me
you may name me
but i will root again
and again
and again

i am pig
i am the one who stays
i am the one who eats
and sings only when full

Canto the First-and-a-Half
Being a Not-So-Heroic Episode of Porcine Transport and Philosophical Rodentia

I
In some forgotten drawer of God’s own sleeve,
Where dreams of plastic gently come to grief,
There rode a pig (of pink, if you believe),
With chipmunk strapped in saddle like a thief.
He bore a flask, a lantern, and — naïve —
The sense he journeyed toward some strange motif:
A painted fae with trumpet in her lip
Had beckoned him — or so he let it slip.

II
Now chipmunks are, by nature, fond of jest,
Yet this one bore a burden in his pack —
Not merely bits of walnut or a vest,
But something like the weight of being back
Before the tale began, when he confessed
To pig that time might fold and leave a crack
Through which one stumbles, blinking and perplexed,
To find one’s future is one’s former text.

III
They halted at the foot of painted mirth,
Where fairies danced with vaguely awkward grace.
A goblin drummed. A satyr’s fleshy girth
Obscured the finer points of time and space.
“I know this crowd,” the chipmunk said. “Their worth
Is measured less in wisdom than in face.
They’ll never speak a word, but if they do —
It’s bound to be a riddle split in two.”

IV
The pig, whose tongue had rarely found its cause,
Declared: “We come in peace, or so I think —
But should they offer rules or sacred laws,
I say we nod, and quietly steal their ink.”
The chipmunk, wise, applauded with his paws.
“No hero ever prospered with a wink,
Yet every villain flourished by a grin —
So let’s begin by neither lose nor win.”

you who held this not as book
but something warm and breathing
you who traced the thread
with fingertip or thought

you are not guest here
but remembered
by pig
by chipmunk
by all who gathered unseen

you who kept walking
even when the path thinned
even when the green grew louder than speech

you are read
as much as reading

and though no one said your name
the vine leaned toward you
as if it knew
already
you were coming

bronze beneath the half-summer moon
a dream of vine not yet named
in lines that cross and spill
a voice once heard returns in green
drawn not by hand but breath
something seen not clearly shaped
cuprum whom i saw
cuprum who did not speak
but turned the page instead
and in that turning left the thread
for you to follow now

owl kept watch
the fox kept time
beneath them grew

the breathless rhyme

the woods did tilt
the light turned slow
a whisper passed

where none could go

the field was flame
the form undone
yet still they stood

not two 

but one

ash wing

we broke the chain
but not the fire
the sky went red
we left the field

river mother

he turned away
the crown was sharp
his hands were still
he drew the breath

still veil

no one spoke
the wind was wide
they walked in thought
and called it home

together

we heard the hush
we kept the form
and when it broke
we stayed

Si dolce è’l tormento
Ch’in seno mi sta,
Ch’io vivo contento
Per cruda beltà.
Nel ciel di bellezza
S’accreschi fierezza
Et manchi pietà:
Che sempre qual scoglio
All’onda d’orgoglio
Mia fede sarà.

La speme fallace
Rivolgam’ il piè,
Diletto ne pace
Non scendano a me,
E l’empia ch’adoro
Mi nieghi ristoro
Di buona mercè:
Tra doglia infinita,
Tra speme tradita
Vivrà la mia fè.

Per foco e per gelo
riposo non ho
nel porto del Cielo
riposo haverò…
se colpo mortale
con rigido strale
il cor m’impiagò
cangiando mia sorte
col dardo di morte
il cor sanerò…

Se fiamma d’amore
Già mai non sentì
Quel rigido core
Ch’il cor mi rapì,
Se nega pietate
La cruda beltate
Che l’alma invaghì:
Ben fia che dolente,
Pentita e languente
Sospirimi un dì.