Deborah Heissler

“Latefor the present, I supposeaccentuated each timeyou see, quick enoughthis fraction of earthunderfootthat upright speechimprints,like the whole of beingresumesWe’ve hit on something like lightning strikes”

“Everything had become song. The curve of the road beneath the clouds here, and there the strokes of dark earth, the green and the gray, the torn pink of clay and gravel under fingertips. The consonance was above all that of the muffled shadow and grass to the depths of sky, where a flutter of cheerful feathers quivered.In these dreams there are also black walnut trees, and then a forest that opens in a breeze. Nothing. Nothing more than the obstinate sound of wind.”

“Silence. First it’s a cloud of apricot trees in flower, yellow or ivory, like a thousand little butterflies sown in the fresh grass, moving in the glow of lamplight when night ascends. Fragments of dreams. You can see the red sun setting on the foliage, like an enormous mass of incandescent steel.Then there were the trees a little farther off, straightening their fragile frames, the woolen blue pincushion flower like an eye and that tumult of milk in the deep stone, and finally the moan of the air beaten by a flock of blue woodpigeons– a silken challenge perhaps, or one of crackled leather.”

“And thenwe no longer distinguish far nor nearThey sleepdreamgather branchesfor this firethe cloud brewsagainst the powerless day —Long line of fugitivesbeneath the snow”