Today I saw three whales. I was in an airplane. The whales were in the ocean. The shadow of the plane skittered across.

and would not scare

it wasn't a skunk, but a raccoon posse. "a pack of bandits" is what my mother would call them. soft and fat, the fur up close, the ringed tails, the clasping paw-hands, half-cat, half-bear. I left a shiny black bag full of trash outside our door; I planned to take it out, but I forgot.

White Bird

I have not been writing because inside my brain the words are all written on top of each other, like the letters overlap and to write requires untangling, unlayering. But I wanted to tell you about the white bird I saw after dark on the sidewalk, by itself, lingering as people rushed by with plastic bags and boots.

There was a tern at the bird center. And J got a new dog; her name is Daisy. Also, after work one day, there was a beautiful, colorful sunset.

It wasn't a fox. It was coyote.

I want summer to last forever

It's my favorite. The long days make me feel safe; for hours everything is gold. We were moving for so long and now we are resting. But it all feels like running in place.

The other night -- it was dusk, really...the gold-silver light -- we saw a fox in the field near our house. It was a red fox but it looked silver. It was traced by light. The ears were pointed, the tail held straight out behind. "foxlight" I thought. That was exactly, it. silver-pawed. feather-eared. lilac-misted. paused, pointed. forever-light. deep in my heart-bones.

On television there is a story of a man who takes his red dog to the steamy night sidewalk. He emerges from silver elevator doors, crosses the polished lobby, and opens the glass doors. The red dog barks through the glass. The man walks away. The dog trots away. The dog made the man so sad.

Today, dragonflies. At least three of them, one of them clearly blue. I've read dragonflies mean money. money is so sad.

Pyromancy

The mountain above our house is on fire. This morning it was a powdery smoke bloom among the chaparral; this afternoon it was darker, thicker. By nightfall the widened line was like an open horse shoe. At sunset, the ash in the air seemed to glitter; the sun light slid under the smoke. The sun seemed to outline the smoke-clouds in rainbows. It's a type of pretty that hurts. Tonight we are sleeping elsewhere.

It is hard to describe: when the window
is down and the sun comes up, following
a pelican into a shed filled with orange
tractors and dirt bones, being watched
by men as the wings close in, the tiny
mites that cover the body. In eyes
flicker fins. I'm looking at you. Glass
trigger in the face, waiting for me
to open my mouth. If we were braver
we'd be scared of you. As it is, we isn't.

sooty shearwater

I am now convinced that the bird that arrived at the door was a sooty shearwater. SB county birders are reporting swarms of them off the coast. Last Monday, three days before my bird arrived, there were reportedly in numbers exceeding 10K between Goleta pier and campus point. Our house is just a short distance away, so now I think a straggler juvenile must have crash landed at our house.

Sooty shearwaters can fly for a long time.

The flights of sooty shearwaters documented in this new study represent the longest animal migration routes ever recorded using electronic tracking technology: around 65,000 kilometers (39,000 miles). Taking advantage of prevailing winds along different parts of the migration route, the birds trace giant figure eights over the Pacific Basin.

A group of shearwaters is called an "improbability."

Things have been weird. On Thursday morning a strange bird came and knocked on the door. For real. I saw it on the patio through a gap in the curtains. It's body was sooty and dark. At first I thought it was a crow. Then I saw the black webbed feet and the sharp curved beak. I thought then that it was a cormorant -- a juvenile. Often the juveniles look dark gray. Adult cormorants have glossy and dark olive colored feathers. This bird wasn't glossy, and seemed somewhat disheveled. I wondered what it was doing on our patio, which is behind a natural wall of plants and under an eave and about a mile from the beach. It tapped at the glass door. Birds, even when they flock to our feeder, never get so close. I watched it for a few moments. At last, it settled on the welcome mat and faced the glass.

I opened the door. At that point, the bird hopped clumsily away. It didn't fly. It was weak. I knew to rescue it. I brought it to the bird center. J studied the bird and murmured, "I don't know what that is." She went to fetch her book. When she returned, she identified it as a parasitic jaeger . "An evil bird" she said. All I saw was a weak and frightened bird. The book described the bird as "the pirate of the seas" whose shadow "cleaves across the tundra, striking fear in the hearts of all who glimpse it." It is described as a swift and agile flier.

Later that day, I googled bird omens. As someone interested in animals and divination, I was especially intent on learning what it means when a bird knocks on your door. What I learned from the internet made me worried. Over and over again, accounts that the arrival of a bird means death. Death death death. I thought of how it felt when I held the bird -- how light and fragile it was. How wild. It wasn't death that it made me think of, but vulnerability. Everything alive is vulnerable.

Many birds are clepto-parasites. Many animals. Including people.

I think the description of the bird as "evil" is unfair. Perhaps it is a bird that cannot bear to kill, but knows that it must consume flesh to survive. Nonetheless, I am not convinced the bird is a skua. I think it is perhaps a type of shearwater. In my memory, it looks a lot like this:


Even though the bird was weak, it managed to tear several shallow cuts on the skin of my hands. They are in a neat little row, and they remind me more of claw marks than beak marks.

Yesterday, my adventures with birds continued at haskell's beach where there were reports of weak and injured cormorants. On our way down to the beach, we crossed paths with a falconer. He was driving a little golf cart and three birds -- an owl and two falcons -- perched on bars where there is usually a back seat. The nearby Baccarra resort uses owls and falcons to chase seagulls away from the expensive suites. The falcons wore little masks that covered their eyes. The owl was gorgeous and bored. "He's happy as long as he gets fat," the falconer explained. He wore long leather gloves.

Down the rocky beach, under the old pier formerly used by the veneco oil corporation, six young cormorants were huddled against the rusting barriers. Offshore, there are a few large platforms that serve as cormorant colonies. Because of the waves and the strange angles of the structure, it seemed as though it might be impossible to corral the birds. K and I attempted to corner one of the birds, and as I lunged forward to block it from entering the surf, my head hit one of the metal bars extending from the platform. I was suddenly flat on my back, in the sand and kelp. I was seeing stars. I brought my self up, the earth undulating beneath me. I was up in time to see K get the cormorant into a box.

Tomorrow I will go and see the bird who knocked on my door. Perhaps s/he will be ready to be released. I know that there is more to this story, but this is all I can tell for now.

poetry and divination demonstration

I make a found poem/forecast using a parts of speech die and a book:




I am experimenting with the form of the "how to" video. This is my first one. It has problems. 1.) it is blurry 2.)it is upside down 3.) I didn't list the step where you write the words out *in the order in which they appear in the poem* 4.) most of the video is upside down.

BUT

I'm thinking of making one of these each week as a "poetry forecast" sort of thing. I'm going to try and re-shoot the vid tonight.

Here is a transcript of the poem (and yes, I really used bibliomancy and cleromancy to make this poem/forecast).

from Barbara Guest's "Green Revolution"

Being
listening
sounding
appear
is
bringing
appears
approaching
relinquishing
going
telling
whispering
is
indicating
might be
go
go
It's
I'm
looking
looking
it's
isn't

When I'm driving, I often mistake things near the side of the road for animals. There is a small hydrant of sorts on Mesa, and as I drive over the little hill towards home, I often mistake it for a small brown rabbit. It looks like a rabbit that has risen from nibbling the grass to stand at attention-- quite still, it's ears alert. And there are bits of black plastic (I think they are from black garbage bags) tangled in the thorns of the curled barbed wire that trims the chain link fence that runs along los carneros. I often mistake these bits of black plastic for crows. The plastic looks like crows that are cawing, tails fanned, necks outstretched.

I often do see animals near the roadside, especially close to home. Sometimes a Great Blue Heron will be right at the side of the road. I assume that it is hunting ground squirrels. And there are often ground squirrels; the field near the parking lot is a virtual city of squirrels. When it rained I worried about them. I wonder if they dig deep deep down or if they vacate the boroughs. I am still wondering about this even thought I've been seeing them again. I often see animals on the walk from the parking lot to the door. Several times I've seen a skunk. I have a fondness for skunks. I think they are beautiful and vulnerable. But I only see skunks at night. During the day, I sometimes see a hawk. And lately the trees are flooded with blackbirds. It seems they are never in numbers fewer than 100.

There are many dried and dead things. Once, I found the the parched body of a frog -- thin and light, wizened. Its folded legs flat, the tiny lobed finger-toes spread fragile and crisp, almost translucent. And today, the dehydrated body of a lizard, no longer than an inch and a half. I thought it was a tangle of dark thread, but it was the stiff wisp of scales and feet and the little curled fingers and tail.

room (asylum)

asylum

c.1430, from L. asylum "sanctuary," from Gk. asylon "refuge," neut. of asylos "inviolable," from a- "without" + syle "right of seizure." So lit. "an inviolable place."

Cleromancy Poetry Game # 2, "cup-like lilies" CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, curated by JESSICA SMITH

Now available at Etsy.

******six word dice for poetry, divination, and play******

*Cleromancy Poetry Game # 2, "cup-like lilies," is sourced from the work of Christina Rossetti
*Curated by Jessica Smith
*Six dice; each side of each dice has a different word (for a total of 36 words)
*Comes in a hexagon shaped box
*Dice and box are pyrographed and inked by hand
*Roll the dice to make poems or divinations
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Cleromancy is a form of divination using sortilege, casting lots or casting bones in which an outcome is determined by random means, such as the rolling of a dice.
___________________________________

Cleromancy Games are published in *very* limited editions (there will only be six of each). Due to their handmade nature and differences in the patterns and texture of the woodgrain, each Cleromancy game is entirely unique.

____________________________________

Jessica Smith edits Outside Voices Press, an umbrella for Outside Voices Books, Take-Home Project chapbooks, and FOURSQUARE magazine. Her first book, Organic Furniture Cellar, is available from the Press website at outsidevoices.org

____________________________________


There will be MORE cleromancy poetry games from Hex Presse. Each game will be sourced from "woman-authored texts"** and contemporary poets will be invited to "curate" the dice. Cleromancy #3 also will be curated by Jessica Smith and sourced from the work of Christina Rossetti. Cleromancy #4 will be curated by Michalle Gould and sourced from the work of Virginia Woolf.

**open to interpretation :)

x-posted to hex presse blog and womb blog

owl

~*~Coming Soon from Hex Presse~*~

******Cleromancy Poetry Game******

******six word dice for poetry, divination, and play******

*Six dice; each side of each die has a different word (for a total of 36 words)
*Words for cleromancy #1 are sourced from the poetry of Emily Dickinson
*Each die comes from a different poem.
*Cleromancy #1 comes from poems #339 ("I tend my flowers for thee--"), #479 ("She dealt her pretty words like Blades-- "), #1775 ("The earth has many keys."), #500 ("Within my Garden, rides a Bird"), #311 ("It sifts from Leaden Sieves--"), and #632 ("The Brain -- is wider than the Sky --").
*Comes in a Hexagon shaped box
*Dice and box are pyrographed and inked by hand
*Roll the dice to make poems or divinations


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Games will be available through the Hex Presse Etsy shop soon!
______

There will be MORE cleromancy poetry games from Hex Presse. Each game will be sourced from "woman-authored texts"** and contemporary poets will be invited to "curate" the dice. Cleromancy #2 and #3 are curated by Jessica Smith and sourced from the work of Christina Rossetti.
_____

Cleromancy is a form of divination using sortilege, casting lots or casting bones in which an outcome is determined by random means, such as the rolling of a dice.

Words on dice can be used to make make poems. Here are some examples of visual poems made with word dice.

**open to interpretation :)

______

x-posted to WOMB blog and Hex Presse blog

Corvus

I am now caring for four baby crows.

from wikipedia:

-The American Crow is one of only a few species of bird that has been observed modifying and using tools to obtain food.
-American Crows are monogamous cooperative breeding birds. This means that they will care for young that are not their own.
- American Crows are a sentinel species-
- crows top the avian IQ scale
- One species, the New Caledonian Crow, has recently been intensively studied because of its ability to manufacture and use its own tools in the day-to-day search for food.
- Frequently crows appear to "play" with hawks, taking turns "counting coup" while escorting the raptor out of their territory.
- In occult circles, distinctions are sometimes made between crows and ravens. In mythology and folklore as a whole, crows tend to be symbolic more of the spiritual aspect of death, or the transition of the spirit into the afterlife, whereas ravens tend more often to be associated with the negative (physical) aspect of death.
- In Buddhism, the Dharmapala (protector of the Dharma) Mahakala is represented by a crow in one of his physical/earthly forms. Avalokiteśvara/Chenrezig, who is reincarnated on Earth as the Dalai Lama, is often closely associated with the crow because it is said that when the first Dalai Lama was born, robbers attacked the family home. The parents fled and were unable to get to the infant Lama in time. When they returned the next morning expecting the worst, they found their home untouched, and a pair of crows were caring for the Dalai Lama.

also, language and stories.







black as fuel, red mouth
without winter