swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

something unknown, unnamed
Nathan Hassall

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Morning at Cedar Bloom (#3)

Morning throbs into afternoon.
A deer lifts her head.

Something unknown, unnamed,
clicks a discordant beat from the fir tree.

The two of us sit at a picnic table, eating
bagels with cream cheese, inside the shadowed knowing

of a trunk. It’s easy to forget that energy constantly falls
from the sky—rain, meteor, birdsong.

Even the implausibility of light
drapes onto the forest floor’s precious neck.

We finish our meal.
Centuries go by.

We watch as a redwood grows urgently inside
another’s once unknowable skin.

Letting You Go

I

I throw plant matter off a bridge
during a water magic ritual
which swirls fragrantly in the creek.

Catching against the rocks:
Moon-white rose, bone-red
fire-poppy, sticks of grass

rushed with foam. I press my head
against the scratch of a fir tree. You walk
through skin to bark and back again.

II

Barefoot as evening, I step
across cold-smooth rocks,

slide a sticky-sweet tobacco leaf—
given to me by a Medicine Woman—

across my face. I crouch over the creek.
A sun-bronze flower un-knuckles

under a full moon. I splash water
over my cheeks. You, a drop of salt, fall

from my chin; glint in a sliver of light
before returning to the roaring dark.

Haiku

*
paper moon
all the songs i
failed to write
*
sunflower shrivels
into a baby’s knuckle
California thirst
*
mussels bloom
on ocean rock
look! a pelican!
*
twin periscopes
two seals stalk
the shore

*
rainfall sings
earth from drought
leafless oak

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Nathan Hassall believes in poetry’s transformational potential. He weaves dreams, altered states, numinous experiences, and the natural world into his work. Hassall’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hare’s Paw Literary Journal,  La Piccioletta Barca, The Inflectionist Review, and more. He currently serves as the Poet Laureate of Malibu, California. Find out more at www.nathanhassall.com