Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire. Brenda Hillman

The Seeds Talk Back to Monsanto 58 Coda: Suggested Activism for Endangered Seeds 59 The Nets Between Solstice & Equinox 60 Very Far Back in This Life 61 To the Writing Students at Orientation 62 The Letters Learn to Breathe Twice 63 Local Warming & Early Autumn Butterflies 64 Halfway Through Civilization, Late to Another 65 Imitating a Squirrel at my Job 66 Experiments with Poetry Are Taken Outdoors 67 A Short Walk During Late Capitalism 68 A Quiet Afternoon at the Office 74 A Quiet Afternoon at the Office II 75 When the Occupations Have Just Begun 76 After the Orionids, Near the Plaza 77 From the Dictionary of Indo-European Roots 78 Short Anthem for the General Strike 79 Mists From People As They Pass 80 Types of Fire at the Strike 81 o—o—o o—o—o o—o—o o—o—o 82 A Brutal Encounter Recollected in Tranquility 83 & the Tents Went Back Up 85 2 Journal Entries During Occupy SF 86 An Almanac of Coastal Winter Creatures 87 The Second Half of the Survey 88 Lyrid Meteor Showers During Your Dissertation 89 Poem of Hope, Almost at Equinox 90 Radical Lads, Blisters & Glad Summers 91 Mystical Lichen Falls Through the Fonts 92 Smart Galaxies Work with Our Mother 93 In the Evening of the Search 105 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & NOTES 107

       I. ON THE MIRACLE OF NAMELESS FEELING

       I went out to the hazel wood

       Because a fire was in my head

       W. B. YEATS

      “The Song of Wandering Aengus”

      Hummingbird darted from his perch and stole a spark of fire.

      He tucked it under his throat and flew directly back home.

      When he arrived at the coast, Coyote was nowhere to be found,

      so Hummingbird stashed the fire in the buckeye tree.

      JULES EVENS Transcription of

      “Where Fire Comes From,” a Miwok tale

      Hoy que en mis ojos brujos hay candelas.

      [Today the candles burn in my witch eyes.]

      CÉSAR VALLEJO “Los dados eternos”

      Brenda, it doesn’t exist. JACK COLLOM

      Conversational aside, Naropa

       ARGUMENT:

      microseasons, vowels, panicles, California grasses, existence, sex, the cosmos, childhood reading, guilt, noons, letters in summer fruit, autumn equinox, the stalk market, stemming the crisis, termites, winter electricity, the sixties, learning the y, solstice, spirits, wars we hate, motives, Candlemas, margins, spring songs, people with birthdays in May, Tesla, memory loss, deserts, Claudia & Don in the desert, summers in the Sierra, crosses in vineyards, the nineties, parents’ old age, codex, loops in consonants, drones, the body’s nerves, spoken bird poetry, candles in the witches’ eyes—these, my love, are made of fire—

TO SPIRITS OF FIRE AFTER HARVEST

      Between earth

      & its noun, i felt a fire …

      —What does it mean by “i,” Mrs?

      —It means, (& i quote): one

      of the vowels in the brain

      & some of the you’s—;