Harbinger
December first’s morning fog thins and lifts noontime Anna’s hummingbird—
contour trace iridescence
taken as given
lived as given
defending the relevance of radiance
Of
such cloudless
utter absolute.
: :
Sun tinting its going everywhere as it goes.
A yellowish green in the Aleppo pine
edging the construction site.
Ruddy brown the pine’s bark, then
the loamy taste of spruce.
A blue-gray shade.
: :
Sun permeates into transparency
movers, dozers and dump trucks.
Tremors asphalt with a shimmer—
Westward on I-10’s conveyor semi-trailers and sedans
babble the freeway into sun’s paradise of sparkle.
: :
Of sun’s glittered advance—
: :
Of sun’s light-expended lingering, who is there
to utter praise for the warming the shining
constantly of risen generosity—
Nevertheless persisting—
breathing light into Wolf Moon’s
vanquished rabbit.
Seeker
Horizon’s love-sick fool
you pilgrim the Earth
chance the Ocean
Sky’s blue hands
emphatically open
Who is responsible for the death of a woman
Winter, for example—
an admixture
of a woman’s caused-by-reality
bracing of black ice, snow-gritted street.
Wind’s granular abacus counting
her anonymity and disappearance.
Snow more than expected—
waist-high as memory’s dark narrative
blue opaqued white beneath hemlock trees
but it does not take winter to vague a reason.
Whole Catastrophe
it’s obvious you feel herb-stained raspberry-
scratched so I ask
you wheel few words
reset in silence
we walk until initial pretending wears off of
candid spontaneous
we circle a path to our unfolded chairs
a gorp of dried cranberries almonds
dark chocolate accompanying champagne you kept
perfectly chilled on your back
sun extends its light 149.6 million kilometers
visible eight minutes later
we’re happy in our chairs by
a fire by a river then reading
as mood brightens so goes ours
faced we’re better like veggies roasted on a fire
good I say the forest mood-useful
you say the forest
the forest living on its inner thriving
after a controlled burning grows
some wrecked things unharmful
make sense as
our discreet rock-rimmed fire denounces
chilly hungry
better we when faced as sunlight in a camp chair
as reading as a ladder-backed woodpecker knocks
as tree-wind tenderness as earthly ravine promises
the river river
downstream the sun sends us there
our certain water transport
light-hammered rock-battered but we’re listening
the uncharred air tenderness
the trees colander light
colander our affection
trees absent syringe concern
addiction prevention
absent city where meth stakes motherhood
her discernment a flop mom bonded to syringe but
really under drug scum she’s a star
reflected in jade water
today my mother a chair in the sun
reading by visible light near the river
the forest an ally champions
an understory of late god-pitched flowers
wakes as spooned agave syrup
bee-loud blue fortune
wakes an us-ideal as the cloud-lifted whole-view
mountain peak the sun lights aplenty beyond our
thoughts even as we maybe
as industry maybes the forest the river
412.5 parts per million
atmospheric carbon in the air
we’re not even a bee pane away from
out of doors
good to lose the car gain our legs
we have a premiere camp emanating as real
as certain as bird and water musics chant to fix
though nothing’s broken
shore up we two on a spit on our chairs
in the sun to the chits and churls of birds
and this fly it’s here like us of space of air
vibrates its slang
sit here with me listen you know
I princess to horror and still believe in the sun-rain
exchange a mystery bend of stem
wind’s good age
how I hate how I hate when you deny we
store irreducible flame get up stand forth
devotee of reality
chant the unbreaking bend of stem
mystery alive my diction there’s your chair
renewed by me
hear it deliver basking
yes shame trails or if you squint it cinches
your hands behind your back
but just as easily
sun breeze river waterfall trees
puma’s padding over our affluent naptime
sometimes you choose stuck in a maze
sometimes I stop at the child’s grave
but we unraveled the manacles we may assume
power to refuse to march behind any ruling ghoul
this is why love loves a storm
tree canopy canopying
our future futures thousands more moons
we’re young and old our sheets clean
kiss my mouth of its fizzy extolling
come here life for you with me if you want
our now rivered forested many colorists
the forest animals their angel haunches
what never shall I be able to outrun impossible
psychical cul-de-sac aided by green discourse
virtuoso palmate pinnate moss lichen
tourniquet mistakes
Summer Tanager shamans my ear
a tourniquet a river makes two parts the sun
makes of us lip-synching agents weaving
a statement of belief for clarity
voiced arguments
save unexpectedly
words yours and mine
making ours flow the river
tremble fear as fish in shady shallows or cliff-
frothed water below
listen before fear drowns let’s intern to love
instead of power game
let’s power water buckets clap for a makeshift
shower of sun-warmed water for love we endorse
for love as dusk charmbracelets the fireflies
your image no different
listen we have to jiggle the handle at times
listen you intern to me as I intern to you
you’re my mixologist I’m your vibraphonist
we’re a snacks-and-chat smorgasbord
why listen to the self-war
why adore Gargoyles of the Year
why reckon our mutual dark oceans for bait
instead wed a salmon of determination
back-country long-walking hatches
lupin-lined paths
Black-crowned Sparrows
little monks that chip
our minds animalized determination
after solicitors hell-blaze property
waste river water
squeak legal dark mentions
but they can’t out-reverence us idealists that’s our
department I say be gone greed infection
together we can ward
we can saturate as full moonlight
let’s never be ancient but continually magnified
you by me by you
let’s forget abandonment and night-rinse our bodies
until we’re clear of this and this and that and that
then through the branches the billion stars
let this moment reign
the Seven Sisters our minds
genuflect their light
if I’m a moment you’re a good rhyme
if you missed there’s next time
everyone does their best sometimes crosses first
the finish line other times violence
gets the prize or cruelty
licks its chops
you’ll hear the cure
Great Horned Owl’s old dusk song
let’s talk and sweep out the tent
life damages and some call us
by skin body part gender pejoratives
as pain and love
as fern fronds and chunky stew the best heirlooms
from the garden, they don’t resent consummation
in any gap we remedy by speaking
it’s so much better to speak by listening
the way sure by ears wins
a horizon where capture and torture once were
Jami Macarty studied with Charles Simic at the University of New Hampshire, where she completed a BA in English, and with Jane Miller at the University of Arizona, where she completed an MFA in poetry. After graduate school, Jami was executive director of Tucson Poetry Festival (1996-2005), then moved halftime to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she teaches contemporary poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University. Jami also works as an independent editor and a writer of essays, reviews, and poetry. Jami is the author of The Long Now Conditions Permit, winner of the 2023 Test Site Poetry Prize (forthcoming University of Nevada Press), The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award - Poetry Arizona, and four chapbooks, including The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024) and Mind of Spring (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami is the recipient of grants from Arizona Commission on the Arts and BC Arts Council, and scholarships from Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, Community of Writers, and Napa Valley Writer’s Conference, among others. Jami's poems appear in the anthologies Cascadia Zen, A Journal of the Plague Years, Resistance, and Rumors Secrets & Lies and in literary magazines such as of The Capilano Review, Interim, Vallum, and Volt. For more information about Jami’s writing, teaching, and editing practices, visit www.jamimacarty.com.