Transformations
By Natalie Anderson
Fruits and Flowers by Jan van Huysum
Photograph by Yoojin Shin
1
The morning
the light
the river of your eyes runs
into mine
So I write
there are herbs and salt and dirt
there are people that I’ve hurt
Some guard the birth canal of dreams
with entitlement and insecurities
others love and set me free
So I write
The fruits of summer rot in my hands
slippin’ away like a dune’s sands
as dawn blooms
into afternoon,
and I write.
2
Redwoods rain
longing to respire again
Thickening inquisitive roots
shooting out shoots ascending
with energies of the elemental
Mycelium express the connectivity we lack
Bark battles beetle
as fruiting bodies snack.
3
She forgets to breathe in the wildflowers
fingers figuring forms
of photosynthetic powers expressed
subtle and fragrant
pressed
in waves of the deathly miasma of artificiality
Desert shows her a waterless world
the pools of her pupils pour into a
mirage of the cactus-dwelling upwelling
of fine sand and coarse lines
and on the horizon her mind mines
cranium dines
engaging this chaotic tunnel of time.
4
i.
Rocky colors
the skyline
in persimmon lemon
unfazed by choking lungs
plastic bits
thrown-up slave-owner grits
A hard mineral reality
resolute under wretched life forms
who laugh in the face of their own existence
and cry out against ataraxy.
ii.
Mountaintops part ways for the sun
in morning aglow through foggy pines
and darkened in purplish daze
along their faces
we trail blaze
hugging the curves
sipping the oozing bubbling babbling edges
whispering
singing
screaming
Mountain moans in memory
as she plays with our fragility.
iii.
Tracing the soft gift of
carefully configured carvings
in mountainside
a thought lingered
I will do the same
with my stones
when I am
old.
5
It’s too early
the seeds won’t rise
it’s too late
a flower’s demise
a dove’s coo goodbye
the evening
the night.
Natalie Anderson is an environmentalist, agro-ecologist, musician, and writer. She completed a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. Her poems are produced from a place of deep love and observation within context of the human experience and our interrelated existences.
