These are a few of my favourite poems - ones that each time I go back to them still resonate. I've written a lot of words over the years. Still liking my own work sometimes decades on, that's an achievement.
method for making a death mat
golden orioles, red-winged black birds
playing amongst the tule
*Tule [Schoenoplectus acutus], woven, makes a house
covering, a mat for sleeping on the pebbled ground,
your body's shroud when you die. How do I tell you
that dozing far from that water, my burial mat close,
I hear those birds singing?
Originally published in Parentheses Journal Issue 3, March 2018
Published as Pearl Button.