Our story begins with my talisman, a photograph

taken in nineteen fifty-six of a young boy in Thibodaux.

The small print came from Bayous, through Mardi gras, to pines,

along rivers, and finally to the sea and then to me. I buried this photo

in the middle of a valley, a resting place before the climb. this is my headstone

to leave offerings to the boy, my father who passed away eleven

years ago. when i think of the object in the dirt at the base of a tree,

i think of the owls, the bones, scraps and hair. laid out summoning

to assemble

a new creature. storms and stars,

and the silver road leading to

an empty home. I return often to leave

things behind and take some too. i have tried and failed to put words

to the feeling of being

in the valley:

dreaming of it, remembering it, being there.

this series is that. 

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