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2023 Prize in Memory of Anaïs Nin

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Muir Woods: Goosepen Chapels

by Ava Serra

in a circle of redwoods, a coastal altar congregation; goosepen chapels and a boy, religious, pinches himself smaller, pinecone, acorn, to slot into sanctuaries of weeping bark; within the redwood city, reservoirs of summer ash and char; smother-tight coating adhered inside every trunk-throat dampens the clover green cotton of the boy’s shirt, illustrates him the dark neon aftermath of a 21st century wildfire; everyday, nowadays earth is less brimming; boy embarks from tree to tree, redwood to chapel, soaks through his shoulders the dark neon footprint of his species. somewhere between human intervention, passerine birds look on and listen, whisper-sing beneath the wind-stirred leaves; the world is full yet of such beautiful beings— redwood trees and trans boys, bird hum and leaf chorus— congregated in a forest of goosepen chapels, oversaturated voids of ash. the world is full yet of such beautiful beings and natural bodies for now.

 

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