IT IS THE EMERALD DRAGONFLY CHANCE I want to talk about
here, the moth-eaten holes

things come and go through passing
from dream. This world of mud and morning light

and oat bread is dense and sweet.
I would be content to stand for ages aerial and ponderous

as a great redwood with unblinking eyes. I would need
nothing, if

there were not fox with her red brush marking the crossings,
here to there and back. Watchful, silent.

Here-and-there name my border
where she knows none.

Red and night are the same
pigment. Tireless

and keep and smoke
name her.

If there were not fox, where
would I die to?

Cal Kinnear is a third generation resident of Seattle recently retired to Vashon Island. In the course of his life he has been college teacher (University of Virginia and Wells College), owner of a book store in Olympia, Washington, modern dancer, waiter at The Thirteen Coins, sailor, hiker, carpenter, development director for the Church Council of Greater Seattle and Explorer West Middle School, and, until recent retirement, Director of Washington Lawyers for the Arts. He has had poems published in The Louisville Review, The Licking River Review, The Prose Poem: An International Journal, Birmingham Poetry Review, Chrysalis Reader, The Temple, Burning Cloud, and RE:AL, and locally in Crab Creek Review, Point No Point, Pontoon, Floating Bridge Review and Fine Madness. He was winner of Fine Madness’ Nelson Bentley prize in 2003. His book, A Walk in Bardo, was published in 2008 by Blue Begonia Press. A suite of 15 translations from the work of the German-Jewish poet Paul Celan was published by Longhouse Books of Vermont in April of 2009. Raven Chronicles published a suite of poems, Heart Range, on line in November of 2009.