Vermont Studio Centre Artists Residency 2018

 

VOICE OF THE WOODS WHERE EVERYTHING STRAYS

I have been green as monsters and harbored their hunters.
I have been burned to soot and morels— enter me.

Every fable ends in me, but I think nothing of the morals.

I told the witch to eat the girl. Why not? I told the wolf
to eat the girl. Why not? Oh, this will be good, I thought

watching the prince steal the swan maiden’s feathers
as she bathed. Sap is neither blood nor weeping.

It is sap. Do not make me what you are. I am fern and furl,
tattooed bark. I want no part in all your feeling.

I prefer the sentience of moss, miniscule and teeming
like a rumor in the gaps. My tall bodies blown and creaking.

I am filled with breath and fissure. There is no stillness
here. Whir of my bodies seeding—I make myself more

(and) matter but do not mean. I sense you lurking my edges
like a confessant. Welcome, child. Lift the screen.

Caylin Capra-Thomas
Vermont 2018