I ride like an orbit

round the circle of native grasses

close by my house

it is the day after my movement towards the other hemisphere was halted

it was after being with the dancers in Alice’s class

it was autumn–– just, no the end of summer

these imported seasons are not a well fitted frame

the sun warm

the breeze against my body–– cool

the bike, my body and the breeze
and between them a transposition

a décalage
it was two days after a planetary announcement of bizarre proportions

it was sometime after our reading began

reading Lisa Robertson poems as a movement across the pacific

a South-South axis

between riots and acts of care

you said that everything was speaking and that the walls were incendiary

and between fires and megafires are new words

and worlds.

I continued reading in the city turned red
patterns of atmosphere and ignition

are like my movement between those speaking walls
and on the matter of unprecedented proportions

we are between disease and the governmental reactivity and the pandemonium

reading

between our voices

exchanging back and forth

a space is created

to create a space–– even if facilitated by the voice record function of WhatsApp, it is still a space
as we were speaking parts of the planet were moving through us–– we were not alone

held by wind and dust
my body continues like an orbit

round the circle

between the bike, my body and the breeze

is this transposition

the cool waters both caress and hold my body

existing here and there

swaying in this cool pacific blue

a South-South axis
your excitement in letting me know about the wind

changed the length of the vowels in your speech
not an I alone
you read to me in my mothers tongue

a familiar language I do not know

what are poems if not beautiful sounds read by a voice?

You read to me from a continent I have never been and cannot imagine

yet I walk within it, carried by your voice

not needing to go further than a landing on the ear