Pictograph. Melissa Kwasny

      

      ALSO BY MELISSA KWASNY

       The Archival Birds

       Thistle

       Reading Novalis in Montana

       The Nine Senses

       Earth Recitals: Essays on Image and Vision

      © 2015, Text by Melissa Kwasny

      © 2015, Cover photograph by Bryher Herak

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.

      [phone]

       www.milkweed.org

      Published 2015 by Milkweed Editions

      Printed in Canada

      Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker

      Cover photograph by Melissa Kwasny

      Author photo by Bryher Herak

      15 16 17 18 19 5 4 3 2 1

      First Edition

      Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Bush Foundation; the Jerome Foundation; the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit www.milkweed.org.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Kwasny, Melissa, 1954-

      [Poems. Selections]

      Pictograph : poems / Melissa Kwasny. -- First edition.

      pages ; cm.

      ISBN 978-1-57131-462-8 (softcover) -- ISBN 978-1-57131-908-1 (ebook)

      I. Title.

      PS3561.W447A6 2015

      811’.54--dc23

      2014031512

      Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Pictograph was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation

        Title Page

        Copyright

      1  I.

      1  Outside the Little Cave Spot

      2  Pictograph: Avalanche Mouth

      3  Pictograph: The Red Deer Place

      4  The Shaman’s Cave

      5  Chickadees and Their Allies

      6  The Sentience of Rocks

      7  Being Quartz

      8  Pictograph: Possible Shield-bearing Figure

      9  Pictograph: Hellgate Canyon

      10  Pictograph: Star Being Cave

      11  Cave System

      12  Petroglyph: Bird with Speech Symbol

      13  Pictograph: Bizarre Anthropomorph, Often With Interior Body Decorations

      14  Pictograph: Interior Body Decorations

      15  My First Ermine

      16  Pictograph: Bird Site, Maze District

      17  Pictograph: Shield with Lunar Eclipse

      18  The Cloud Exercise

      19  My Pictograph

      20  Lost Pictograph

      1  II.

      1  Petroglyph: The Blue Hare

      2  The Crux of Weather Changing

      3  You Wake Claiming There Are Eight Kinds of Light

      4  The Spectrum

      5  A Talk of Windows

      6  Sign with Convergent Nested Elements

      7  What Starlight Has Become in the Moving Trees

      8  Hospice

      9  The Heron Rookery

      10  Kayak

      11  The Ross Giant Cedars

      12  Counting the Senses

      13  Low Tide Pictograph, Made of Seaweed, With Headdress, Dancing

      14  Geography Lesson

      15  The Emerging Field of Image Theory

      16  The Wounded Bird

      17  Moon of the Visible Nests

      18  Frosted Marsh

      19  The Bridge

      20  Crossing the Winter Dream

      21  Translation

      22  Moving Pictograph: Parenthetical Signs of