arbutus ovenbird Along a narrow band of rocky shore, the arbutus trees bleed and rust and shed their papery skin. Sinuous, sensuous, they arch their smooth backs under my hands.They support the weight of my wayward body, they break my falls. I feel along their gnarled spines with my tired fingers, press into dense knots in their woody flesh as if I might provide relief, as if my body has something to offer. I can’t always tell myself from the world. Edges are so arbitrary. We are more space than matter, our cells just stars with aeons between them. So much of what we are is nothingness. I touch my emptiness to this other emptiness, this mind that moves at the pace of centuries. I feel the wildfire that has baptized these limbs with ash. I hear the new green bark eating the sun. Sap runs thin in my collapsing veins and I believe I once had a sapien soul, but that life is far away, on the other end of summer. 260827 what's it to you? who go blather from