FACTS

By Natalie Rice

on one moment
that was many moments.
 
Two goshawks, the sharp
wet of them flying away.
A person can dream herself
 
into what can’t be seen,
only felt—a gust, a hole
in a jacket pocket. Some things
 
have vanished: white-tailed
jackrabbit, burrowing owl, Northern
leopard frog, sage
 
grouse. A thought
that takes me to bed at night:
what emptiness sounds like.
How to disappear
 
completely. 

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WHAT I WISH WE KNEW 

By ​​Natalie Rice

is that it begins slowly: lichen lifts its feet
and walks away from rock. The root tips
 
of trees will continue to speak
long after a tree is cut. Berger wrote:
 
true translation demands a return
to the pre-verbal. But I’ve never found
where the body vanishes and becomes
 
body of sky, body of berry, body
of branch. Today, I avoided
 
what the red helmeted vulture knew,
came down the hill-shine blundering
and thought— 
 
               death death death as I quickened
into unstoried earth-blues and yellows. 

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Natalie Rice holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She has been published by Gaspereau Press: Devil’s Whim Chapbook Series, The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, Event Magazine, The Dalhousie Review, The Malahat Review, Contemporary Verse Two, and Lake: Journal of Arts and Environment. Her poem “Murmuration” was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in November 2021. Her first book of poetry is forthcoming, Spring 2023.