SRnewsletter

Cinnamon
by Ange Tysdal

On the island of Ceylon grows a tree
with bark, thin strips macerated
in sea water, distilled golden
yellow, or quills rolled then burned
releasing the hot odor of cinnamon,
or Cassia, cinnamon-tasting spice.

Some dream of ovens filled with spice
spirals laced with the ground bark of trees
once owned by Dutch traders, a cinnamon
monopoly macerated
by the Brits, Ceylon conquered and burned,
seventeen-ninety-six, golden

age of cinnamon. When the golden
powder priced like silver, a spice,
the currency of kings who burned
pyres of it for a year, on logs of trees
cut by Nero who macerated
his wife. Masking his sin: cinnamon.

Thelemic Magick used cinnamon
to invoke Apollo, god, golden
fulgar, the sun macerated
human idol, muscle and spice
lying underneath an almond tree,
watchful tree that watched when brush burned

words to Moses. Relieve the burned
throats of the Medieval cinnamon
traders, the scampers of Ceylon's tree,
A Hoodoo ingredient, the golden
dust of laving, lecherous spice--
some wedded thrones macerated

by its magic. Macerated
mummies, embalmed pharoahs now burned,
excavator charring the spice
engraved on tombs tinged with cinnamon,
blue crown adored with war and golden
discs, hieroglyph carved on dead tree

limning the life of spice, cinnamon
macerated rinds of trunk burned
drawing golden sapor from trees.

Excerpt from
My Last Horse
by Josie Sigler

Many of those lost to The Ranch are lost to cowardice and fear of living
so far off the grid. But mostly we lose folks to loneliness. To work with
horses who have been abandoned, starved, poisoned--acts
unmentionable in polite company--you must be a highly trained
horse-hand or in a tenth of a percent of profoundly intuitive born healers,
like me. You must exist for the horses, not riches or recognition or even
thanks. You don't have time for flossing, let alone love.

Still, on occasion, Chip, Jesse, or one of the others brought a woman
home from a weekend spent carousing. She'd fall in love with the man,
the land, and the mission, in that order. But it's hard on a woman to live
for a man alone. Bored or exhausted by playing second fiddle to horses
squalling in the night, the women get restless. They leave after a few
months, despite the earth here that smells like a wild mushroom, the air
that presses into your skin like a body, the hills. When a woman leaves,
many a man follows, claiming true love. Love, nothing. As a man begins
to understand the true sacrifices he must make to live the life he dreams
of, he often loses his courage for such a life.