Long before we speak or write, we start to hear a natural song, as though the universe forever hums a patient, urgent message, and we’ve learned to play its tune. We understand how Sun and Moon arrive and pass, gazelles and grass show up then leave, summers fall into winters then bloom into springs, and everybody dies. Around our fires, we practice nature’s measures, and we move without a reason, just to move. It reminds us we share an invisible body, singing as our heartbeats synch along, developing a rhythmic sense of flowing time. Music composes us.

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Geoff Bouvier’s third full-length volume of prose poetry, Us From Nothing, is a poetic history spanning from the Big Bang to the near future. The book will appear in fall 2023 from Wolsak and Wynn’s Buckrider imprint in Canada and in fall 2024 from Black Lawrence Press in the United States.