I am spending 11 minutes each morning on a practice called ”object writing”: gathering raw material for songs by writing in stream of consciousness sensory language (see: Writing Better Lyrics). I’m accessing past & future selves and journeying around the world, all in 11 minutes. I’ve decided to call it “creature writing,” endowing objects with consciousness. Love & splendor from Kauai, Opal
Creature: TREE
The smell of pine needles baked in the sun: I rode my bike square into the trees—it was a bubblegum pink Schwinn, a white banana seat with pink stars the air stung my skin as I swung off course—dreamily rolling down a grassy hill, the slick tasty grass calling me home, chanting me down in a chorus of crickets and rain. The trees have been loving me from Before my birth, a wet hickory bough hanging over my grandmother’s head, perfumed and slightly sleepy linden trees dazed sentinels in my European lineage the land where steam poured from broken bread on cold mornings and a rosy round-cheeked mother pushed the carriage toward home, a loaf under one arm, mourning doves and morning glories spreading their lush mouths the plants climbing over me in salty gestures of love wrapping my limbs in solitude and bliss, crunchy leaves and rough branches the equine scent of dogwood the virgin plumeria flowers, petals of silk caressing my thighs and the backs of my arms as I lie helpless in the cool shade: will I ever recover from trees? Can I love one who is not a tree? Will I reveal my secret succubus, give birth to swinging tendrils of green? In Powderhorn Park I flushed my spine & tail against a white pine—who called me Home—once there was and once there wasn’t—the tree who cradled me before I knew I was
