Tuesday poem #229 : Aaron Boothby : Sequoia

         Stone the flame cracked     minute    

grain emergent     fire-black     nestled

     in soil’s scorched arenas     Comes

         eruption of form     from implicit

potential of all flesh indefinite     an

     expectation     electric of greens

         varied nations     In divided dualities    

mute abilities     reign in matter’s assent

     without comprehension     Before names

         a kind of alchemy     antecedent

to shadows are the forms of needles

     limbs     pillars vaulting thrust up red

         A taunt of the idea     word’s shiver

violence of nature’s arts     eddies     gusts

     melodies of it making     unmaking

         scent’s pulse     wood’s circulation

What’s not limited by form     defined

     riddled     cursed by what code contains?

         Defiant material shapes itself     not

any I     no One     no accounting after all

     but sinews     utter responsibility

         bound to exhaustion     There’s

no resolution     only perpetuation    

     brushing off loam and needles caught

         while rain fell     bodies left shadows

burned into the damp     echoes of

         a kind of shattering     absence   

Aaron Boothby is a poet from California now living in Montréal. Work has been published in Vallum, Axolotl, Whiskey Island, and other journals while a chapbook titled Reperspirations, Exhalations, Wrapt Inflections was published in 2016 with Anstruther Press. Tweets appear @ellipticalnight and a website can be found at secret-interference.info.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan