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Kirsten Rue

Author. Editor. Content Writer.
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  • About
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    • Editor
    • Short Stories & Essays
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Recent

Blog
The Year of True Connection
about 6 years ago
On walking home in the rain after Alice Notley
about 8 years ago
New Essay Up at The Rumpus!
about 8 years ago
The Year of Boundless Love
about 8 years ago
Plotto #1
about 8 years ago

A recent cute photo of both parents on my Dad’s 70th birthday. Happy Father’s Day, Dad! Facts about Kevin Rue: 1. He has great hair and was a hair model for a friend’s exhibition in his youth. 2. He has cooler taste in music and mov
#marchforunity #jacksonhole #blacklivesmatter #wyoming #defundthepolicefundourschools
Gathered in the Town Square on Sunday during the March for Unity. #jacksonhole #blacklivesmatter #georgefloyd #saytheirnames
Someone is adding chalk art all along the local bike paths. #blacklivesmatter
Tonight I was very moved to kneel in silence with hundreds of people in my Wyoming hometown for 8 minutes and  46 seconds in honor of #georgefloyd . #jacksonhole . Pinedale. Sheridan. Cody. Laramie. #blacklivesmatter
BLACK LIVES MATTER
Remember and pay respects to George Floyd, a man who is not here today because racist police officers murdered him. Take action. Sign. Call. Demand more from this country and yourself. #blacklivesmatter #justiceforgeorgefloyd “Big Floyd was kno
Let’s get this rainy Friday night BBC binge started. Cookie by @burrowtongue Comfort scarf technique and pillow nest by me.
A poem for you by @brittanypaige . #wegotthisseattle
Social Distance Diary: The #ballardfarmersmarket has reopened for socially distant shopping. It was very well-organized with hand-washing stations, line entry spaced by 6 feet, and safe places to wait so that one group could approach a stand at a tim
Social Distance Diary: Tonight, I’m listening to the rain. Cleansing; steady. The road below is flint-black and gleaming; street lights like bars of gold shedding filaments, shimmering with falling water. A good rain like this sounds like promi
Social Distance Diary: The kids are alright. ❤️#socialdistancediary
Social Distance Diary: My barrier of “Do I or do I not address this animal like a person?” has always been vanishingly small. But now that birds comprise the majority of our social visits three flights up, I find myself in full on “
To the person who always says, “Let’s go!” In this case, all the way to the UK! I have always been aware of how much you are loved by everyone you have touched in life. From Dad to your friends to your coworkers to the children you
Social Distance Diary: Scenes from a socially distanced birthday, part two. Brought to you by the color pink (including tulips and Gerber daisies from @carrot_trail & @kristinpwalker !), Coco , special deliveries chez @sahasahas (zoomed in here),
Social Distance Diary: Scenes from a socially distanced birthday, part one. Riotous blooming, coffee with cupcakes, and saying hello to my birthday twin and family. #socialdistancediary

WinterWoods1.jpg

Poem for the Winter Woods

December 27, 2015

What we love about snow is its accretion: boughs, branches laden. It weighs; tamps down a wheedling winter; sets all to wait. We spend minutes pushing it around; months. Yet, funny thing with snow—you can only disperse it, never transmute it. For that, greater powers are needed.

I glide through on my skis; I think about the stuck and unstuck I do. My lashes close, then open. The windshield wipers push a ledge of snow back and forth, in a V. The clock faces push a V around, too. In all of this, the shapes repeat. My breath—it sticks; un-sticks; stacks onto the breaths before.

For every inhale, silence itself is apportioned—a ration of the chest, the heart, the soul.

If I come unstuck here, that’s alright. That’s alright, this whole scene seems to say. Spring’s creeks are muffled; the world’s sealed up its seams.

That’s alright.

There’s this: my exhale; another return of the line that makes marks against the white. Stack these silences, one on one on one. Push your breath in and out. You cannot change; only grow, flake to flake. Live to breathe and live to wake.

The sum adds here. This waiting in the woods, this tree. The refrain; the wind that gives your body shape:

You are she. You are she.

WinterWoods2.jpg
Tags: prose poem, prayerful, winter, nature
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I write fiction and essays, as well as edit and write a wide variety of web content, UX, and print publications. I am based in Seattle, WA.