Breadcrumb #282

SAMANTHA SETO

The wild flowers are tall and reach my waist.
A map is pointing north in two – diverge.
The ink just smears like blood; I will release
crumpled paper into the blue river.
Like God put trees on earth, a tear may drip.
A veil of lavender covers my face,
it trails over the ground in bright sunlight.
The berries ooze into my hands like sweet
honey, the pond has round water lilies.
My hands submerge in crystalline water.
I trace the moon, it’s bigger than my palm.
A waning, holy light of fading hues
like Michelangelo is painting frescoes.
The willow sheds its leaves in branch water,
the birds are chirping, bells that ring in ears.
My eyes are glassy, a rose inside a vase.
The cacti wither away in heaps of soil.
I gaze at twinkling stars in darkened sky,
my skirt is gently carried by the wind.
I remember the awe of last sunrise.

• • •

Breadcrumb #96

D.C. WILTSHIRE

. I know Vancouver. I know how
to have a passport
qua marriage license; I know
the islets from the sky,
descending in sharp gray
to a land of indigenous masks
and rock-filled beach. I know
the stretched scope of UBC
at the tip of English Bay, the totem face
that gapes at thick midday clouds,
pregnant with 10-minute showers. 
I know the marshland and the evergreens,
the nightlights of distant ski slopes,
the backbone ridge of near mountain peaks
where Nature views aloft with serene and
pleasant, magnanimous gaze, allowing us
a brief dip in pacific wading pools. 
I have no prose for her,
none that wouldn’t disappoint.

• • •