Notes on Our Progress
︎︎︎ Charlie Ericson
︎ Dec 18, 2025
We are no longer barked,
no longer rooted in place and condemned
to flower, to give off life,
to wake, eat, and sleep with the seasons.
We do not rest at the edge of a river,
do not stand, full of death,
in expectation and fulfillment.
Nor are we like the river,
fluctuating in place.
We are smog-like and supreme,
gods of our own making.
We exist in all places, own
our selves—have, in fact, selves
that we may claim to own.
We are the dust that makes itself
seen, if sometimes at the cost of sunsets.
But you, who I always find here,
you who reeks of fetid nature
and insists on our connection
with delicate lungs and aching joints,
you are here again, saying again,
Not quite. We are not quite deathless.
no longer rooted in place and condemned
to flower, to give off life,
to wake, eat, and sleep with the seasons.
We do not rest at the edge of a river,
do not stand, full of death,
in expectation and fulfillment.
Nor are we like the river,
fluctuating in place.
We are smog-like and supreme,
gods of our own making.
We exist in all places, own
our selves—have, in fact, selves
that we may claim to own.
We are the dust that makes itself
seen, if sometimes at the cost of sunsets.
But you, who I always find here,
you who reeks of fetid nature
and insists on our connection
with delicate lungs and aching joints,
you are here again, saying again,
Not quite. We are not quite deathless.
Charlie Ericson enjoys our legitimate and liveried masquerade.