Weary pilgrim, burdened and alone,
feels the stinging glare of darkness resolute,
an incandescent chill within his bones
that renders him pale, still, and mute.
And cast across calm waters is a flare,
as if ten thousand torches set ablaze,
and brightest in the centre of that stare,
a coldness that could smote the blooming rage.
The island underneath that lidless glance
beholds it like a ripened nectarine,
so sweet it pulls the pilgrim in a trance
toward the fruited chalice so serene.
His skin burns but now he cannot look away,
and searing fire mixes with violent chill;
the giant eye compels his soul to stay
and saps him of his only weapon: will.
2d ago
May 31, 2026 at 11:58 PM UTC
I sometimes fear in the smallest corners of myself that all my love is anchorless,
but when it culminates into a coming wave, it weathers us
into the wretched forge of brutal, relentless belonging
5d ago
May 29, 2026 at 8:33 PM UTC
On some trembling aspen or birch, I see an eagle there the size of the moon. His white head blends seamlessly into the evening sky. The wind ruffles his feathers but he remains otherwise still, his brown body the shape of a half-heart in the crux of branches still barren of leaves.
He sits pensive and alone, the other half of the heart his body makes open to a new, spring night, maybe making space for the flower moon of may to fill; or maybe when he outstretches his massive wings he becomes something larger than that of a full heart, a full moon.
May 4
May 4, 2026 at 3:30 PM UTC
tall reeds mangle against the view we know by memory:
a lake still now, but sometimes torn through by waves.
You have grown up with this view and tell me of the times it brought you solace; beyond the passersby in your life how it stuck out, refused to disturb you as everything else did, refused to let go of its strange hold on you, my dear lora.
Apr 26
Apr 26, 2026 at 8:43 PM UTC
I had gone against myself as snow began to vanish from the solemn road. Spring is slow-coming up here, but I remembered how the sun is so late to leave us in midsummer; how it can reach midnight and a faint blue glow will still hover over the western hills before it truly grows dark. Yes, when the snow was still thick over the hills I was lost in the timelessness of winter, but the spring thaw has awakened something out of me. Like staring into a face and recognizing that beneath all the nice things it will reveal there is something shallow there. That, despite the strange mysteries of longing, when the time comes I could see myself as better off alone.
Apr 22
Apr 22, 2026 at 11:25 AM UTC
Out there is a sea of tranquility; how is the deep, finite ocean less known than infinity?
Apr 21
Apr 21, 2026 at 12:02 AM UTC
I have been out looking for meaning:
under distant views and in solemn window panes,
out in the cold, strange darkness of the fractal evening waves;
in familiar faces that, in looking back at me,
become "obedient to the least command thine eyes impose on me"
---
"The Moon is distant from the Sea –
And yet, with Amber Hands –
She leads Him – docile as a Boy –
Along appointed Sands –
He never misses a Degree –
Obedient to Her eye –
He comes just so far – toward the Town –
Just so far – goes away –
Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand –
And mine – the distant Sea –
Obedient to the least command
Thine eye impose on me –" (Emily Dickinson)
Apr 12
Apr 12, 2026 at 2:43 PM UTC
This morning it has been snowing. I want to look out at all of it with you,
and read to you aloud the translations of great epics,
pausing at places to explain my passions and the meanings
and the greatness of language. That the man who wrote of elves
and rings and dragons loved Beowulf and hated it also,
as he struggled to translate an old, dying text into a new world,
to make it loved beyond poetry, to make a hero’s song known.
I had learned that the sea was a violent path called whale-road,
and gulls and albatross are like winged beasts that mean the wanderers
are boundless, belonging to nowhere, a warrior’s greatest fear
and worst fate. And fate rules your name, but you may somehow
fight against it like a flood, toward the tables in death where
other Greats sit. I have heard my teacher speak of Caedmon’s
reluctance to sing, so reluctant that angels came down from their hearths
to compel him to sing. Sing! Caedmon, for gods’ sakes, sing
of them in their high ranks, in his deep mercy, in fits of passions
that thrash and recede like the new seas no longer steeping beneath ice,
in divine glory by the fire, with faces lit in shadow, sing Caedmon,
and your song will be recorded by Bede, a hermit in the hills.
And you may interrupt me to ask, why do heroes never cower
when they have wives and children to come back to? And I will say,
to be a coward is to lose your dignity, your people, your home; you
will be sent off to strange isles, where Wulf and Eadwacer once went.
To die bravely is better than to cower when you are losing something
either way. And then your name will be carved onto stones
for legends to pass over you: would it not be a glory to be the one named
in memory by singers, for centuries over? And you would agree, yes,
that would be a nice fate.
Apr 4
Apr 4, 2026 at 12:55 PM UTC
Yes, it has been woven and down-trodden and forgotten,
but when it overflows we can watch the fish come
to new currents,
and though it is the third day of spring we are still in snow,
but when my hair is cut, it will be the end of my winter.
Mar 22
Mar 22, 2026 at 3:19 PM UTC
I could have loved you, but I will repent
and spend all time repenting you,
who, in soft prayers you whispered true,
oblivious with my devotion, spent.
I could have scorned you dear — confess
you heard my sins but could not know
how deep this dreaded yearning burns below
but to proclaim myself would rend you less.
I, like the beaded garland, hang between
soft hands, but cannot wring them free
of folly prayers that you might bless on me,
or find me in the afterlight of beams.
Unfix me from your view or cast your glance
on high, on pews, or to the panes
that even through tempests and spring rains,
cast God’s best light toward you in a trance.
Oh, I could have loved you if the night
would, from me, spare the shame of day,
if my repentance could delay
mourning lovers and hell’s burning spite —
If you could spare me from your kind
and spiteless soul, I could repent;
if you were ever heartless and unkempt
in mind, but no; and not in God I bind
My secrecy from you, whose word reminds
me that if only I could love
the mother and her son above.
But, in you, my true devotion lies.
Mar 13
Mar 13, 2026 at 1:06 PM UTC