Frederick E Steinway is a resident of the north-central Massachusetts bioregion. Diaspora is offered here as a unifying concept to explain or envision effects in the biosphere of ongoing geophysical transformation. Seeds, spores, particles…as things alive in their activity.
Diaspora
Rising of mist as at dawn beside the sea. Fertile milk of dust and light reflects bright apparitions in the air over lowly pines.
A tall cumulus maintains itself above a lake . . .
“Those who tamp spores into autumn oak for reishi flushes in spring; chemists who refine herbal gums and sap from flowers; the naturalist in her mosquito-net who searches out barred owls while children wander shores of a lake to gather garnet sands, or the snowy owl that lives in quartz dunes; mountain women who weave pine needle baskets, and they choose the long ones, bundle of seven; a quickening tempo of beating wing startles a forest woman where no grouse is found; a child beside a hedge who sets small stones in a row for all to see, and the girl close by who watches her dragonfly spread green-gold wings in dry air; soap-makers and weavers of singing vicuña; those that paint watercolor designs for greeting cards; sellers of quail eggs; those that gather thick mullein to ease edema and cough; the hunter who drowses far up in their blind; the stamp collector who steps out on brick veranda to inspect new growth of pines, and in his room near first stamps of Sydney harbor one red kohlrabi waits to discover its own mycelia; the klatch of cousins who share tales in the vaccinium patch and it is a contest to fill the first pail, and there is that quest, that secretive quest for turtle egg and unknown species of flower; families who honor warmth and gather before a hearth; all walkers for peace bearing banner and drum up a long hill; the frail conductor who cleanses her oboe and stores it in a glass case . . .
These are children of migration . . .”
* * *
Dark blue swifts on the wing weave an architecture in the air over meadows of gold and violet grasses. Swimmers bring up from three metre’s depth rare coins etched with signs. A flood of sweet waters, streams of pure springs pour themselves out upon earth.
The author at last secretes her manuscript to the vault, and it is a gathering of stories, an imagining of memory, truthful words in a stream of tales.
One very tall cloud having claimed its space on the lake dissolves into rose gold evening . . .