#irene mathieu

[bijoharvelle]

self-isolation poem #4! today’s is “soil” by Irène Mathieu from her collection Orogeny, transcribed below. feel more than free to share but please don’t remove the caption! hope you’re all staying safe & sane out there! 💙💙

soil

the way you say soil sounds like soul, as in

after we walked through the woods my feet were covered in soul

when it rains the soul turns to mud

the soul is made of decomposed plant and animal matter;

edaphology is the study of the soul’s influence on living things

while pedology is the study of how soul is formed, its particular granularity.

you are rooted in a certain red patch of soul that bled you and your

hundred cousins to live, a slow warm river you call home.

maybe there is soul under everything, even when we strike rock first.

the way you say soil you make a poem out of every speck of dirt.

[lifeinpoetry]

yes, it hurts, that’s the moral of the story. yellow is the color of my wanting. I’ll say to you, here is honey — eat.

— Irène Mathieu, from “artifacts of daily wanting,” published in Empty Mirror

[paperboatsandaeroplanes]

[myinspirationjournalquotes]

who decides where a roof ends and the junkyar galaxy begins— when I say hello love and he peers under the blinds of my eyelashes, is what he sees what I think he sees?

From "the junkyard galaxy knocks" by Irene Mathieu

[kitchen-light]

we call a thing lovely only after we have broken it.

Irène Mathieu, from her poem ‘long distance’

[kitchen-light]

to watch a day end:      make your way through pink-skied country how to hold the skeletons of poplars and power lines in the mind as they mark the miles—

Irène Mathieu, from her poem ‘long distance’

[littrature]

soil, by Irene Mathieu

the way you say soil sounds like soul, as in

after we walked through the woods my feet were covered in soul

when it rains the soul turns to mud

the soul is made of decomposed plant and animal matter;

edaphology is the study of the soul’s influence on living things

while pedology is the study of how soul is formed, its particular granularity.

you are rooted in a certain red patch of soul that bled you and your

hundred cousins to life, a slow warm river you call home.

maybe there is soul under everything, even when we strike rock first.

the way you say soil you make a poem out of every speck of dirt.

[whisperthatruns]

a braided girl bounces into a corner store that smells like garbage. salsa gushes in the sunlight plays under her heels and the radio announcer asks are you a sex addict? sex addiction is a serious disease.

things are close together here – trauma and innocence are neighbors – dancing and bullets share afternoon coffee – a virgin beach once slept with a gold mine.

the salsa flares and flies land on green bananas. when what ripens splits to rot the memory of sunlight will be excruciating.

Irène Mathieu, “Observation in a Small Country”