i.

carnelian willows 

flint veins of the river

hoof-worn rock and a drifting 
scent of ungulates

	       	          (scars in stone
		                   fossil trails)

magnetic north 

	          pilgrimage

I bow to the illuminations 
within wounds

the work of days: 

	          a re-membering of 
	          that which is now torn

in pockets of moss I rest my eyes 

throats of earth open
	
	            a hive of tongues sings

as blue-antlered dawn falls 
vertiginous over mountains


ii.

deadfall, muskeg

	            flakes of mica

the cryptic living 
tinted with winter 

	           (each nivean heart 
	            an individuated star)

high bright tooth 
of winter moon

hill-spines arc – 
every 
vertebra 
a birch


iii.

the lake rim glows
but its eye is dark

clouds and rain 
dissolve there

	            (and shores 
	             and rock)

within catacombs
of willow

a bobcat
	             ruby-throated
attends to its altar 
of rabbit

	              and the forest, 
	              dimming

snaps shut its 
anthracite 
wings


iv.

the river is
coal-blue sap

	             deadfall
	             tamarack

there are flickerings at the edge 
of my vision – 

	             movements 
	             through 
	             the long-bodied 
	             pines

(wolves are stirring, elk are stirring
in the cold embers of this forest)

and water 
is a dark bloom, is never still 

	              hylae swell

bones blacken


v. 

between blue-skinned spruce
and a fire calving light and heat

at an altar of water where all
are subsumed or broken

darkness is drawing 
everything
open – 

	            a long-stemmed
	            and leaning dark

within which I may
be scented or seen

and so I try to be silent

to intuit each movement within
this catacomb of branches

to not give myself away


vi.

in a place wholly inaccessible 
I arrive to sticks and cold rain

beside white birch
at the edge 
of a silent lake I rest 
and wait

for the one voice of night 
to share with me its oldest name

. . .

Autumn Richardson is a poet, editor and translator. She has authored 5 collections including Heart of Winter, An Almost-Gone Radiance and Ajar To The Night. Since 2009 she has been co-director of the multi-media publishing house Corbel Stone Press alongside British artist Richard Skelton. Between 2013 and 2022 she co-edited the influential journal of ecopoetics and esoteric literature, Reliquiae. Originally from Canada, she now lives on the west coast of Ireland.

www.corbelstonepress.com