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Grace 6h
Two pairs of hands:
they coalesce in the drawl,
the duet shaping them
anew.
In the other room,
four bodies, carved by song.
inspired by the style of H.D.
two people with guitars
Grace 3d
sunflowers, peonies, dandelions, maple trees,
daisies, buttercups, forget-me-nots, lupins,
the lilac bush, white, pink, purple, all over the city for a brief time
the apple blossoms in the dying apple tree,
helicopter leaves on bushes, fragrant pollen for honey bees,
cool air and warm sun, the spray of a windy day on the air,
the smell of summer sun weaving through my hair,
I forget the youth of may, the long sunset-glare
across the lake, the twilight moon, the taste of pear
and fresh strawberries, and the feel of dew
seeping through the mesh of my shoe, freezing my toes,
fires into midnight and fireflies and flights of freedom,
and sublime
woven into spring and summertime.
Mar 22 · 113
my friend
Grace Mar 22
I've been craving the carved part of me that you carry, dear friend
joy and sorrow are mixed (according to Kahlil Gibran) and he is right
Mar 15 · 62
night after eclipse
Grace Mar 15
all I want is to dance, in the deep of the night
in a room full of people. we only have short years until
it's wrong to go out and dance. let me dance
with my friends, it's the middle of the
night; I can people watch. Looking back
on last night, we were like a school of fish
with shimmery emerald bodies.
Mar 14 · 109
north star
Grace Mar 14
I wait to be led by the starlight,
finding one dimmer than the others but too steady to ignore
Mar 11 · 267
before the birds wake
Grace Mar 11
The mirror's dark other half looks back at me in the dark of the morning

the whole street's asleep still, moonlight wavering and waxing to its peak

the lake is still frozen beyond the harbour, two islands joined by an ice corridor

the sound of the guitar a part of the darkness, a piece of the morning, a song before the birds wake.
Grace Mar 2
You're the wayward star, blinking patterns in the sky,
burning lifetimes away;
you love god, kiss losers, hold close to the dying;

throwing yourself off the cliff of your potential as the lunatic who hies to the tall cliff and leaps into burning oblivion,

anchored now to a man who speaks at you and never could see you,
only feel your youth and covet your mind.

-

Jane! What wretched choices you were maybe forced to measure, for the shortcomings of your era.

Be the voice in the woods, the single song for the morning.
with reference to Charlotte Smith's "On being cautioned against walking on an headland overlooking the sea, because it was frequented by a lunatic."
Mar 1 · 62
Basking
Grace Mar 1
One person like steam on the horizon in a winter morning as the sun rises

stuck in the awe of them, the way of them, the transientness of knowing how soon the day will move on,

be over but that feeling lingers
Feb 28 · 41
two friends
Grace Feb 28
I'll go out to the summer for you, friend,
lay amongst the wildflowers blowing in the sacred wind,
you like a lover oceans away. There's the building, though, where you
are sleeping, and the hearth burning on and on and on, keeping you.

I am restless without you. You are the air to my passion and I the breadth of your flame:

consume me, Helen. You know what I say beneath the ire for which I am named,

and I crumble into you on my final sleepless night. You held off death for months so we could be together one last time,

seeping into each other as you become a saint in midsummer
Jane Eyre (1847)
Feb 27 · 63
a walk onto ice
Grace Feb 27
in a dream, the frozen expanse brims with colder water

but her and her father stood still as the water hummed below them, seeped through the cracks

a voice caught in the throat, a psalm for this frozen bay

as winter swells with yearning for the sparrow, for the stream.
Grace Feb 25
Thawing snow admires
that sweet wind, steeping the earth
in the till of spring
Feb 19 · 73
gold
Grace Feb 19
Hillsides of endless green roll
like clouds before a storm,
but they are stilled by the mountain.
And within that valley, a boy no more than what life's made of him yet:
he will go on to foreign places and make them home,
grow into a place that he does not know,
build things, and a family. And he told me of that merry place
locked into the ether,
where a teacher made honey from the bees and gave a jar to his mother,
a gift. For nothing, for they were poor and so was the teacher,
and the honey was gold in his mother's hands.
Feb 9 · 58
angel in the night
Grace Feb 9
The succor of strumming overtakes her
as the moon climbs high;
if she plays late enough, she will not sleep,
will let hours slip by,
will become midnight's muse, or something else ---

another song for the morning
Feb 7 · 40
someone you'd admire
Grace Feb 7
I'm asking genuinely now, not that I ever knew  
to be true, it is hard though plain;
it is phone calls in the summer, on the cusp of rain
and glad to know you do not see my face, although
my voice gave me away within that hour (or two?)
I walk with others in me yearning to get out / Claw at my skin and gnash their teeth and shout / One of them wants only to be someone you'd admire / One would as soon just through you on the fire (fleet foxes)
Jan 29 · 68
I'll be here
Grace Jan 29
I'll be here when the snow is frozen over,
Kissed by moonlights ethereal glow,
And when its gaze emits exposure
To the humming, frozen undertow,

The lake will groan in midnignt's cover,
And in the morning light as mists suffuse,
Revealing ice: dawn's venerated lover,
A winter tryst and draped in pale blues.
A poem for January
Jan 23 · 125
the springing
Grace Jan 23
There's a spring in my mind, and we sit near it together
and there's a silence between us, charged with the memory of winter and summer and pelicans on the shore.
You close your eyes in prayer, but I keep mine open and watch you
in this eastern light, thanking someone.

The ocean, the lake, the water is lapping with the phrase
moments in time, and I hear you next to me.
We stare at this expanse and are next to one another. I don't have to look at you, to say a word,
just this moment is like a well in the earth, springing with fresh water from the dark, into my arms,
fulfilling me.
Jan 18 · 139
Winternights
Grace Jan 18
The shoreline isn't what it used to be.
It's staggered now; the smoothness has regressed,
and aquamarine ice is stinging the water
like a knife. The room itself is warm,
though stifled with smoke and dust. We go out
in the night and inhale.
The cold smells nice. Where is the moon?
Where are the stars? All I see are city lights to the south,
and an unbreakable darkness in the east.
I miss the sound of moving water,
and I dream of summer.
But how I love these winternights, tucked beneath blankets
and snow. An interval to the dissonance
of a January that is too warm, too dry.
In the early dawn, the sky is periwinkle darkened,
and the waves crash me a song reminiscent of you.
Jan 3 · 428
Sonnet: The Kiss
Grace Jan 3
I see her there, the lady you will make
a mother out of. Oh, look at her youth,
she is a child herself, a girl forsooth,
with comely features lust will one day take.
Oh sweet child, hear my voice and do not wake,
you'll say. Inside you slithers God's sharp tooth,
his precious boy who'll die for sin and truth:
And then you'll watch him burn upon a stake.
She stirs now, with demons clad in white
or angels in the frost. My darling girl,
I'll shield you of the things they'll do with this:
A robe of heaven's blue, to catch starlight
and frame your face; let loose your swarthy curl
and let me wake you with a sacred kiss.
Dec 2024 · 50
Oblivious
Grace Dec 2024
read this later,
so I thought it something else. The only thing between us is laughter.
Your eyes are touchstones
and you leave to let me be, then come back and
we are like this.
Close and then months apart,
everything in between is irrelevant when we unite.
In the mirror I examine this person,
not left wondering until the evening ends.
that flaming fountain in those kindred caring eyes

obvious
Dec 2024 · 264
snow on pine
Grace Dec 2024
come into me, like a snowflake on the pine
and I'll infuse my sappy kisses on your eyelids, love
and you'll become an emerald song in the wind

or crash into me like an icy wave in mid-November
and run your fingers between the spaces of rock on the breakwater,
chilling the birds.

Tumble into the fabric of my arms. Embroider your love into my skin.
Nov 2024 · 91
the glance
Grace Nov 2024
These waters shimmer with memory;
watch as they glisten, flowing on the cusp of this age and the next.

Earthy, brown, depthless pools;
lacustrine, surging on the precipice of pearly shores,
enriching me as I look in

and see the tide's truest nature looking back at me.
Ancient and clandestine, too,
the place where youth and wisdom dwell
my sister's eyes
Nov 2024 · 54
in the wilds
Grace Nov 2024
I step down to glean
the petals in the pond, that softly stir
when the muse plucks her instrument;
they have been blooming an eternity here,
in this cave. She has brought them up on this music,
and my tear fractures the ripples
when I hear the song;
I cry.
her music is a vestige of some older, wilder world
Nov 2024 · 101
market
Grace Nov 2024
stand too close,
and bite me.
I will lead the way
through people, swarms and swarms of them,
hold tight
and take me to that view of ours:
we close our moments with the lake in mind.
Oct 2024 · 516
autumn hymn
Grace Oct 2024
leaves loosen from limbs
and the smell of apples sweetens the air

I follow you to the top, to the peak. You  laugh and I know
we are for each other in this life,

despite the weather, the path, the season.
Oct 2024 · 75
needed [in this life]
Grace Oct 2024
The whole way in I thought about how courage is a ring,
and I found it on the hike
"You're not the same Hobbit as the one who left the Shire."

"...I found something in the Goblin tunnels."

"Found what? What did you find?"

"My courage."
Oct 2024 · 245
giver
Grace Oct 2024
what does the utterer give to the prayer?
conduit
Sep 2024 · 114
shouldered
Grace Sep 2024
I love harshly,
in the thicket with sword
I will not yield,
I'll be your shoulder, your shield
Lean into me
Sep 2024 · 178
pastoral
Grace Sep 2024
the life breathing in will quell the dread of a burning day before you; for, in the mornings, the air is fresh and chilled,
and you may graze in the openness

until the flowers fulfill you,
awaken you.

Take your forest path, your field trail, the one you marked yourself
for these moments. And bring the dogs,
let their leashes be loose,
let your soul be freed here, in this scenery.
the ritual of morning
Sep 2024 · 107
fragrances
Grace Sep 2024
spring is hardly sure it loves the summer sun,
till the wind is warm and fruitful.
uncertainty amongst strangers
Aug 2024 · 289
august song haiku
Grace Aug 2024
I am lost between
the senses infused; linger,
letting them last long
this week filled me with quiet, easy going sun,

freed me
Aug 2024 · 105
songs on the cliff
Grace Aug 2024
You were only a song I'd heard,
one that I had loved almost immediately.

Years and a thousand lakes between us, till we met again,
on the cusp of sorrow and memory,
my love.
inspired by Howard's "The Other Valley"

Maybe years of pining on what could have been,
or simply being upfront about the truth of what you feel.
Jul 2024 · 96
as you wish
Grace Jul 2024
I think I knew you once,
with eyes like the sea caught by a storm,
you left on the vow of this unbreaking love.

Come back to me, I begged into the hills, death having made us wed. I died that day, and every day after.

In the throws of a fateful wind, my dress blew scarlet threads; my dead heart was promised to a prince, and vacantly I walked, a ghost for you.

Come back to me, I begged into the hills.

In this life or the next, I will ride wildly on horses with you, my love. I became yours on the sword of your vow.
the princess bride (1987)
Jul 2024 · 67
clay
Grace Jul 2024
pliant clay creases in your hands,
collected in the special place just off shore, below the waves.

good for the skin, it bakes onto flesh too easily in this heat,
and then comes off just as nicely.

you could shape it into anything, maybe an offering to the gods or a formless clump,

but you make a duckling out of it. Now it's sitting on the sill, staring out at the freshwater sea you birthed it from;

not from foam or anything special,
just the supple clay in the lake,

the cool respite of it, the way it allows life to make it so.
quack
Jul 2024 · 83
lake haiku
Grace Jul 2024
starlight does not shine
on the shores of lake despair;
waters quell longing


. . .
i'd think the wind doesn't blow,
and there are no waves,
and when you walk in there is no wake,
or ripple.
Jul 2024 · 150
the kiss haiku
Grace Jul 2024
death takes over us,
with a kiss to break this spell;
the longest lover.
I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream...

You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream
Jul 2024 · 145
the trip
Grace Jul 2024
Feet and toes dipped into throws of milky waves and morning haze

and pelicans on a tiny isle,
and houses staggered over cliffs

along the shore, and seagulls drift
and hours wane, our legs yearn

to stand, to stretch, and we are swift
beneath the day, I want to burn.
07.14.24
Jul 2024 · 115
Pilgrimage
Grace Jul 2024
The pilgrimage, across the rocks,
along the shore,
they walk with solace.

Twilight stretches long limbs as they waltz in a line to the edge of the world,

gazing into the depths of the waters to see whatever it is they have come for.

Then the sun slips down and stars make a path for them back to that place of beginnings.
07.11.24
Jul 2024 · 156
awakened you
Grace Jul 2024
God or that breeze, spoke out and I could feel the caress on my young face. An intimacy only longing could tell you.
I long for you, so give in
Jun 2024 · 117
Cat
Grace Jun 2024
Cat
Walking in the evening shade,
a figure there, it has not strayed
far from the path. It does depend
on shadows, lurking, it can blend

but sunlight enters through the trees,
reveals the cat, a stealthy breeze
that saunters over, brushes against
our legs, and now we have a little friend.

She sits on the stairs, stalks in the grass,
guards the street and greets those who pass;
a friendly thing, but we say goodbye,
until next we pass the creature by.
Theres also a fox who lives on the hill and I think they have a mutual understanding
Jun 2024 · 201
prelude
Grace Jun 2024
rain falls, sinks into my skin slowly,
pacing down the path with you on the other line.

we talk for too long, but it flows a little seamlessly,
like a new bend in a stream

and we end on a fine note,
a prelude for the next conversation.
Jun 2024 · 87
heart
Grace Jun 2024
flushed with emotion, and choking on the truth.

could say a thousand things, talk into a corner.

to be clear,
I love you. That is all.
"is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?"
Jun 2024 · 144
berries haiku
Grace Jun 2024
a lover's soft kiss
beneath this strawberry moon:
spring into summer
seasons crush together,
into a cherry wine
Jun 2024 · 96
say yes
Grace Jun 2024
we come from dust and star and sky,
admire the place from which we came;
on hills and rooves and grass we lie
to taste the thing we have became.

-- how selfish and fickle we are,
how cruel and kind and strange;
like suns that burn too fast, us stars
so bright, and then, so plain.

eons pass and still we lie,
transfixed by that beloved sky,
and people live, love, quickly die
in a sweet but single breath of time.
i'm in love with the world through the eyes of a girl
who's still around the morning after.

sunlight brings existentialism out of me
Jun 2024 · 101
kindred
Grace Jun 2024
kindred blue forget me nots
that knot across the glen,
and tie around the willow's hands,
reminding it of when

the wind would sweep across,
make a dancing sea of gold
in the ditch along the path:
the bright marsh marigold.
Jun 2024 · 76
no name #1
Grace Jun 2024
on a northern shore, the air bites, even in june;

once, it was warm, but that is just a wish now. crouched in a chair,

I feel small raindrops brush over the pages of my book,

shaking as my stiff fingers flip through it on this slow day. This is the port where

the rich americans flock on their cruise, gold chained and wrapped in lovely fur coats,

while the people down here wear their thin uniforms and wake before dawn.
Jun 2024 · 256
hair cut
Grace Jun 2024
sitting as the scissors trim, hair falling to the floor all dark and wet,

I watch her twirl fragments into sections, watch the sharp, quick movements,

and I gaze, haphazardly, at the girl in the mirror

who sits within herself, makes faces when the brush pulls too hard, smiles slightly when our eyes meet,

and that is when I stop watching the hairdresser but her face instead,

that girl, my sister,

so beautiful and sweet.
Jun 2024 · 132
swoop haiku
Grace Jun 2024
the pelicans swoop
in a sea of cloudless blue,
tethered to the sky.
Jun 2024 · 300
petals haiku
Grace Jun 2024
the wind is a song
that bends those velvet petals
for the lips of bees
May 2024 · 204
marigold
Grace May 2024
a bouquet would consist of the flowers you love,

so I will tumble into the ditch, where all the marsh marigolds bloom for you.
May 2024 · 94
talking
Grace May 2024
does a voice ruin the wind?

I worry about the words I will say, forgetting that silence is charged with meaning,
and is easy to share with you.
hollow things become whole in the sunlight
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