Nature hates imbalance.

Feb 17: The Metabolic Hinge

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Note to readers: I don’t normally do poetry, but I’m very busy, so I’m trying something new. Thanks for looking.

-BB

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Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Lunar: New Moon in Aquarius (The Hunger Moon)

Liturgical: Shrove Tuesday (The Shifting of the Fat)

Currents: Low-Level Jet (S/SW); Surface calm; Poor sap pressure.

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I have spent the winter gripping fat from this land,

pulling it from the viscera of goats and pigs,

fed on the solar gain of a season gone dormant.

My dog mauls a weak starling,

rolling in frothy feathers

between the veiled sun and the crumbling clay.

In the canopy, the squirrel drey—

a matted ball of dead-oak heat—

shudders in a stream it cannot see.

The red-shouldered hawk anchors her talons

to a cradle of twigs interlocked,

tasting the low-level jet in her feathers

while the forest floor holds its breath.

Spongy marrow between fangs,

the skillet seeking its grease—

a tired spring padded out

with chickweed, nettles, and thin, woody sap.

Bring starch to lignin,

carbon to protein—

the tooth to the pyre of last year’s slaughter.

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Field Note:

The heat today is a ghost; it lacks the substance to move tree sugar. But the clay is crumbling and the moon is dark—the precise void required for an investment. I am casting the clover and bundleflower seed into the stillness of the floor, trusting the the thatch to catch it.

It’s Shrove Tueday! Make breakfast for dinner, or at least find a nice, fat donut. The wind is screaming three hundred feet up, along with the fat, pattering squirrels. We are just waiting for it to find the ground.

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