fall into me (2020)
For Echo, who someday might stop falling in love with Narcissus.
Inspired by the Margaret Atwood poem “Tricks with Mirrors.”
Backwaters (2021)
For a significant majority of the Amtrak route from Boston to Washington, the scenery is largely industrial – highways, polluted waterways, the backsides of our major cities. But there is one glorious respite along the coast of Connecticut, where the train runs along quiet beaches and marshes brimming with grasses and seabirds. As a heron looked up lazily at the sound of the train barreling past, I couldn’t help but wonder what this bird must think of our strange, busy way of life.
The term “backwaters” has three definitions: a part of a river not reached by the current, where water is stagnant; an isolated or peaceful place; an area or condition in which no development or progress is occurring. Such circumstances seem almost unfathomable amidst the tumultuous whirlwind of modern life – and yet here is the heron, perched silently on a piece of driftwood, waiting. How utterly senseless our clamoring and climbing becomes when we remember that we too were once like the heron, spending our days fishing in the calm waters of the bay.
I Am Not (2022)
Bridget Bishop was the first of twenty to be accused of and executed for witchcraft after a remarkably unjust trial in 1692. The text comes from the transcript of her trial, in which Bishop refused to admit guilt, even though doing so would have saved her life. Bishop fit the typical profile of a witch in the 17th century – an old widow, married three times, a societal outcast, a woman of independent means – making her an easy target. After the trials were brought to an end, the government went to great lengths to cover up the events, demanding that any literature published about the trials be destroyed. Much of what we know about the events comes from trial transcriptions such as this excerpt and a few publications that managed to escape the siege.
The final words of the piece are Bishop’s last, spoken as she was being hanged. They are inscribed in the entryway to the Salem Witch Trials Memorial in Salem, Massachusetts.
and still, and still… (2022)
The universe teaches lessons in circles. We’ll keep going around and around until we’ve learned what we need to learn.
I can’t say for certain that I’ve broken the cycle, but maybe I’m a little closer.
>>liminal songs>> (2022-2023)
Living in the middle of no longer but not quite yet is a heavy feeling. It lingers on the skin like a brambly wood, sticks to your boots like muddy spring. But as with all things, the only way out is through. And so we pull off the burs, shake the mud from our boots, and keep walking.
