IMPONDERABILIA

A log upended in the lake sits and rots silently. In its dreams it has arms and it uses them to claw its way up to the sky, leaves brushing the firmament. Now, soggy and stripped of foliage, it sits in the water and waits to be swept away for good. A foul miasma has settled along the shore. Blooms of cyanophytes have turned the water thick, like stew. Syrupy and putrid.

Mist creeps along the surface of the lake. It’s early enough in the morning that it’s still cool outside; If it weren’t for the smell it might be beautiful.

At night in the city the sky turns a grimy orange colour. The atmosphere here is a lid without holes and we all suffocate underneath it. Not enough stars. It’s not too late for you- come inside. Hide from the cold just a little while longer.

Here there is so much living but no life, feel the contradiction and ache.

Go back to where the window to the sky is small and subduction has folded the earth.

The mountains have languages of their own, they live in your marrow but you never learned the words.

Wake up in a dream, alone, in a bed of cedar boughs and moss. Wake up in the city, alone, to a white stipple ceiling and distant wailing sirens; A sudden return to obscurity. Float above the sheets in limbo, stare out the window at a single lonely tree.

This place is a tomb.

Run outside while it’s still dark, stand outside and choke on the thick mephitic air, look up at the empty sky and feel small in a way that fills you with dread instead of awe.

Something is askew. Peel back the concrete in the parking lot and dig your hands into the dirt, ignore the way blood wells up around your fingers.

In the lake the rotting log remembers the forest and bitterly begins to weep, the birch trees on shore stare with wide eyes but don’t say a word.

These days red is the only colour I can see.