From Veer
What’s Behind
the curious human impulse to plant trees in lines? Is it the effect of their silhouette, particularly in late light aligned along a ridge, recalling the earliest migrations across fragile land-bridges?—though also much later, the danse macabre that tried to waltz itself out of the plague—that may be going too far, but when I see trees planted in lines, particularly along roads, emphasizing their outward momentum, there’s something in my DNA that moves on beyond me.
Alignment
I saw today in a café, the hairline shadow cast by a fissuring crack in the glass of a window perfectly align, for just a split second, with the network of raised veins on the back of the hand of the person next to me—a total stranger—and the hand now a window, and thus, for a split second, an augmentation of the sun.
Radio in the Background
The voice of the sea—always ambient—sails off—a wash—and then the voice goes soft—floats just above, and the waves, radio and otherwise, pass right through us—then slide through the leaves of trees, over fields and fences, the smallest vibrations streaming over surfaces—skin, for instance—until everything is polished to a sheen. We gleam with listening.
A Lantern
as distinguished from a lamp—both so much more than light—might be a matter of relative intimacy—the lamp internally, bringing its surroundings into the heart of it, whereas a lantern is always outside, and so its light reigns unobstructed—no walls to block it—and sometimes held in the hand of a walker who, as long as she holds it, is similarly free of all obstruction.
Birdcages
A birdcage on a hilltop is only slightly incongruous. Its domed shape, for instance, echoes the shape of the sky as we perceive it, and the sky within it seems every bit the same color and texture as the sky without—with any luck, rather soft and blue. And the breeze is remarkably similar, and the ambient scents. The only real difference, in fact, is that the birdcage is completely empty of birds, while the sky all around it is full of them.
And then there’s the case of the birdcage for sale—it’s a uniquely curious object, at first repellant, but then magnetic. Usually displayed suspended, it’s in that state that its emptiness becomes most charged, to the point that even the dullest customers can’t help but see, sketched lightly within, birds beyond their wildest dreams, and so they walk out of the shop, not only with a birdcage, but also with the beyond.
fromVeer, forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2026
