Strange Spirit
Photograph by Natalie Anderson
By Natalie Anderson
Projections
Your nipple
a ripple in death’s stillness,
feeding the next generation
of human ancestry.
In this field of wildflowers hides an open sky
I see the deer nibbling through the daisies
giving me long drawn out stares
like they feel the nearness of you, too
And how I laid my shattered world
on your galactic shoulder.
Trip to the lake
I sank into that same lake
a year later
And met a beautiful bumblebee
fuzzy, fat, and yellow
drowning delicately.
I carried her on the tip of my thumb
swimming one-armed to shore
Dropping her body swirling
pulling her up again on a tule reed
at last came the dry relief
with the sweet smell of the grass
A gentle rain began
on the rocks
and then she flew off.
Milk
Spitting out my milk
on the dusty freeways
of yesterdays
Bunny hops
Endless stops
among dove cooed whispers
to the garden
Front Seat
Stressed to my left,
she is learning stick shift
from the postured passenger on my right
And I’m along for the ride
in some old truck with broken windows that stick with the crank
Jolting back quickly and forward lullingly
along to some surf rock station
we roll
We are drawn down the road
that empties into an eroded valley.
At last we arrive parked between two water tanks decorated in spray paint
to a red house in the dusty jungle of fluorescent lights
Where she flung the green mug
lazily on the laminated synthetic tabletop,
spilling instant coffee in caramel colored puddles
An admission,
chaotic baptism into the truck-driven world.
Her wit
strange spirit
strong and sure and sometimes kind
I looked at her face and I wanted to draw it
Summer rose
and then fell in thousands of tent caterpillars
that
I cradled in my hands, for
every little soul has its pull in my bones.
I’m still trying to get out of your grandmother’s house
Freckle-breasted bird reflected
Six marimbas in the park again
the stove won’t light, spark after spark
Beauty barks at dawn
up the tree of song
I’ll play the zither as I wither in your memory
Silence breaks as song overtakes
and aging
we begin again at the gateway.
Cherry
Cherry rolls
Under sandal soles
Grasses dance in silver-lit tufts
Weaving wonders through abiotic flux
Bugs buzzing softly to some floral tune
Singing out to evening colors,
winding rivers,
the thieves and givers
of June.
Natalie Anderson is an environmentalist, agro-ecologist, musician, and writer. She completed a degree in Environmental Studies and Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. Natalie has much respect for the creative minds around her, inspiring the launch of the Baram House with her friend Yoojin.
