{T..he Magic Box Photographie}*
hymn for our listening 💫
Joy
It stalks me, knows
where I am, follows me now,
can see me, a wolf at the edge
of the pine forest watching as I run
through panes of light,
against the air that whispers
through the trees, that wants
to lift me up like a sail.
Nothing scares me more
than being unhinged
but when a dove lands before me
I stop short, caught breathless,
breaking open, torn from the trough
of despair I feel so safe in. No choice
but to rise, and I am stretched out,
devoured, expanding into the trees, this bird,
no I, only we, untethered to me
and inside of everything
mortal and earthbound.
— Heather Swan
Another Day Filled with Sleeves of Light
and I carry ripened plums,
waiting to find the one
who is interested in tasting.
How can we ever be known?
Today the lily sends up
a fifth white-tipped tendril, the promise
of another flower opening,
and I think, this must mean this plant
is happy, here, in this house, by this window.
Is this the right deduction?
The taller plant leans and leans toward the light.
I turn it away, and soon its big hands are reaching again
toward what nourishes it,
but what it can never touch.
Couldn’t the yellowing leaves of the maple
and their falling also be a sign of joy?
Another kind of leaning into.
A letting go of one thing
to fall into another.
A kind of trust I cannot imagine.
— Heather Swan
hymn for our listening 💫
Joy
It stalks me, knows
where I am, follows me now,
can see me, a wolf at the edge
of the pine forest watching as I run
through panes of light,
against the air that whispers
through the trees, that wants
to lift me up like a sail.
Nothing scares me more
than being unhinged
but when a dove lands before me
I stop short, caught breathless,
breaking open, torn from the trough
of despair I feel so safe in. No choice
but to rise, and I am stretched out,
devoured, expanding into the trees, this bird,
no I, only we, untethered to me
and inside of everything
mortal and earthbound.
— Heather Swan
Another Day Filled with Sleeves of Light
and I carry ripened plums,
waiting to find the one
who is interested in tasting.
How can we ever be known?
Today the lily sends up
a fifth white-tipped tendril, the promise
of another flower opening,
and I think, this must mean this plant
is happy, here, in this house, by this window.
Is this the right deduction?
The taller plant leans and leans toward the light.
I turn it away, and soon its big hands are reaching again
toward what nourishes it,
but what it can never touch.
Couldn’t the yellowing leaves of the maple
and their falling also be a sign of joy?
Another kind of leaning into.
A letting go of one thing
to fall into another.
A kind of trust I cannot imagine.
— Heather Swan