The fairy ring of large
white mushrooms
that sprang overnight
in my garden
was the ghost of a
massive well, whose
fingers had just burst
through the surface
of his burial mound.
He rang the bell that
summer morning,
and we were afraid to
mow it down.

KateFitzpatrick.jpeg

First it’s a mutation, a glorious event

and then a ripping fragmentation a
two from one too small the smallest
folded paper the fissure the frayed
edge a visitation and that’s the circle
of it all, baby. I do not domesticate,
and I do not make the rules, and in
this body I will gradually expand
until, eventually, I die.

Dew,
The binding juice
Between wormy moons
And fresh mornings.

Eyes on the backs of thin veined wings,
I am afraid of the interconnectedness of all things:
red nose in the dirt, an inverted bloom, underground spring,
cool and wet, from this perspective I’m just peeking
through the surface, from above, I miss everything.

 
 

Precious pores open doors and
the dissolution the dark matter born
before the thing became the thing:
that bursting life, embryonic, old:
Recursion, so many natural portals,
open throat open windows
little droplets that make up so much
less than the whole I am afraid of
what I cannot hold

 

Yesterday, a view that looked
just like you: blonde light, new
growth, the white straight aspens
just as your teeth, green gums
breathing slowly as in deep sleep,
seeding the known universe with
presence: someone totally here,
the necessary real fruit tree.
Evening, the roads are bright
and freckled with frogs, breathing
slowly, drinking rain through soft
skin, with a slightly different
shimmer than the wet concrete.

 

A yellow
so much
it hurts so
bright
underside
balanced
on the lip—

This collage poem is inspired by the structures that buttress the natural and human world. Chaos seen from very far away is in fact perfectly ordered. By varying perspective and scene, patterns emerge and boundaries between individual things dissolve. The perfect idea of the circle is at once joyful, overwhelming, and terrible. — Caely McHale

Kate Fitzpatrick

Signs can take the form of words, images, sounds, body gestures, and objects which play a crucial part in the social construction of our reality.

We take understanding these signs for granted and don’t often think about how we come to understand these signs, or if others can understand the signs we use. All signs communicate something that we may or may not understand based on our own culture and experiences. My work centers around my own sign system to create interpretive spaces filled with unknown letter forms. Repetitive glyphs appear as mantras or broken language, glyphs gather and float away to reveal new worlds.

—Kate Fitzpatrick