written for the Misery Point Preserve, Seabeck, Washington
I admire your vertical ambition
you shift and settle with wind
despite falling over bluff’s edge
you determined to grow up decades
straining towards cloud
I dream of you reaching in all directions
making home in this “place that is like an arm”
listening for North storms
tracking unusual impulses through crumbled dirt
watching for fallen objects making their way to shore
did you wait for your own shape to adjust
ask ocean to introduce you to cousin eelgrass
sing blessings to the forage fish
I’ve come to say hello today again
despite daily struggles to keep balance
I learn again from you how to re-orient back to breath, how to dream into our own roots.
This poem first appeared in Writing the Land: Windblown II anthology.
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Ching-In Chen is author of The Heart’s Traffic: a novel in poems, recombinant (2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry), and the forthcoming Shiny City, as well as chapbooks to make black paper sing and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters (Leslie Scalapino Finalist). Chen is co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities. They are a Kelsey Street Press collective member and Airlie Press editor.
