Jorie Graham

after years of virga, aftermuch almost& much never again, aftercoalescing in dry

lightning & downdrafts & fire,after taking an alternatepath thruhistory & bypassing

us, after the trees,after the gardens,after the hard seedspushed in as deep as

possible & kept alive on dew,after the rutswhich it had once cutfilled in with

dust & moulds – & podsthat...

before the storm isthe storm. Our waiting tunnelling outward, chewing at the as-yet-not-here, wild,& in it thenot-yet,that phantom, hovering, scribbling hints in the dusty airshafts where weawait rain whichonce again will not come, though something we think of as the stormwill. Steeped in no-colour colour. Smothering hopes with falsepromises, as wind comes up and we feel our soul turn...

Then the drone came. A small personal drone. Hung at anintimate height. Hadmuch to say. Hovering,eye to eye, lurching &chattering. Is it your time now, I thought. Thoughtit saidyou should have learned tolove but came upclose, saw it was old, had beenpatched thousands oftimes, maybe more, was medalled with debris,a tin castle, a wooden fish, a rattle – a plasticclock w/one hand...

The American experiment will end in 2030 she saidlooking into the cards,the charts, the stars, the mathematics of it, lookinginto our palms, into all of ourpalms, into the leaves at thebottom ofthe empty cup – searching its emptiness, its piles of deadbodies or is it grass at the edgeof the field where the abandoned radio is cracklingat the winter-stilled waters, the winter-killedwill of...

I left the protectionof my plan & mythinking. I let my selfgo. Is this hope I

thought. Light fled.We have a worldto lose I thought.Summer fled. The

waters rose. How do I organisemyself now. How do Ifind sufficient

ignorance. How do I

not summariseanything. Is this mystery,this deceptively complexlack of design. No sum

towards which to strive. No general truth. None.How do I go...