print previewback JANE SATTERFIELD
Angel of Becoming
Tanja Softić’s Migrant Universe series
A rain of exile abundant viscous dense pouring from the high cubes of a city’s cement . . . The angel of becoming knows looking’s not the least of our pleasures so when the sky goes dull and daylight fades there’s escort, encounter, the atlas upended . . . dark branch overhanging, memory as messenger (mined). . . . Think checklist, think star chart, and compass rose. Think all manner of caution: strong tide here, foul ground there . . . His charge: to revive this chilled portion of your life and restore it to warmth . . . In greenhouses and gardens the other landscapes became mine—the double gates, the lines of taxis, the accent of the tongue, the accent of the soul. Field scored, horizon shifted. The footpath like the view from the barn. Fragments of Joplin, x’s look of amusement . . . and on this road there are many signs. Riffs overheard, the ruins, the music . . . buried beneath new impressions, trampled between resurrected ones. . . . Experiment with a new stove in the kitchen, produce an unusual dish the same magistrates procurators and councilors—sun, moon, and morning star, summer solstice, winter solstice, equinox. Arcturus and Draco, the seasons of sowing and planting as an antidote to sentiment, as an open door. The sound of wings, of riffling papers . . . As the crow flies, as the crow calls—writing a letter, sealing it, writing the address and the stamp becoming unstuck. 
Angel of Becoming
Landscape and Departure