I’m watching ash fall around me,
stick to my skin.
But sometimes I have to live as if I didn’t know,
clasp a pebble like a hand,
stroke ancient bark as though a face,
kiss the softening mist, feel
the pulse of rock as if it were sea,
breath of moon even here, even now
in this place which is home
–and un-home,
where the blackbird in the thorn tree
opens his bill–yellow, of course–
to his dancing scat,
turning inside out, turning in the ashfall.
If I stood on my head, would the world right itself?
I won’t try, but it might.