A whole forest grows from the unconscious— surprising how fast things burgeon if unchecked, even those you didn't at first know or want to know. Virginia creeper bolting across the outer walls, stipple of Japanese knotweed; sneaky chains of ivy staking claim. They shoot up in more than threes: they herald whole tribes of feeling, guests who arrive in summer then stay and stay. When water cascaded through the ceiling from toilet overflow, you said I should't read for omens or premonitions, or accuse planets for the illusion of retrograde motion. A body's never just its gravity, even in descent. Once, high in the hills we stopped to view the falls; ospreys, those birds easily mistaken for eagles, burst from the trees and made wide circles above banded rock. I looked up the noun for a group of them and learned it is duet, notwithstanding the high- pitched sounds they make like teakettles on the boil. See, I do know the difference between appearance and reality, between luck and work. I know one sound a blade can make as it clears the tangles, and another as it trembles and rings like a calling bell.
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