Ephemeral art on frozen brook by Billie Shelton.

Ephemeral Ellipses

Becoming a Naturalist, Part 47 (last Sunday’s prose-poem) by Jack Phillips

Cat tracks make ellipses on snow like a poem when they stop the silence goes deeper. Funny that Felis rufus slinks up frozen creek beds passing unseen and our un-bobcat-like stomps and skitters find around each bend her spoor. 

We take our prompts from native snow-poems seeking to or wanting to believe that we can move traceless make art that begins to vanish on the making write inside-out verses deeply arising from this place that stiffly takes our feet. 

We will never become native here never bones and blood by this land woven and flow. Only by longing do we belong by wildnesses here our souls awakened become the creatures that once we were by the ephemeral blessings we offer.

Coyote ellipses. Photo by Robert Smith.

To learn more about our late winter 2020 Waking the Wild workshops, visit this page.