The wind roars —
then stills to listen
to the spoken grandeur
from the soul of the
angry autumn sky
Its quickly moving grandeur
moving  way beyond
a trailing moment's wake

   Change often goes voiceless —
the autumn wind
needs not consent
to bare the trees;
disguising all symmetry
of yesterdays fleeting glance

Overarching that which
can no longer be
   as it once was —
A  bitter cold gust preys
on this aging bark
stirring to the roots
of my soul

Will true nature’s  
powerful essence
ever reshape the scars
these wind-whipped
human feather's
mask ? 

   The wind roars —
   then stills to listen ,...

and I wonder why
I can’t be the change
I see

Stillwater in the wind


Jesse Stillwater ... November 2nd, 2018

there are the ones
that feel it climb up
the shadow towards the light,
hesitation on every rung,
each wave of the arising
      overwhelms  unabated ―
and woe betides those
who are on the run
from a storm's deluge


A rousing ocean breeze
stirs inside the memory
of an unframed seashell
lying on the hearth mantel;
heightened sensitivity
lapping soundlessly,
spindrift plashing
the shoreline
of another world's
feigned peace


Perhaps the muted voice
of guilty pleasures,
hushed by their own
hidden truths
Feeling the unfelt textures
of every stifled vibration
left unbreathed


The naked truth befallen
so cold and lonely
Running in circles,
volatile as all those
     unspoken excitations raging ―
and the whispers of those
who hear not
the voices in the wind


An emotionally enslaved  heart
tarries,  marooned high and dry
in a memory on a distant sand bar
     lain fallow for so long ―
stagnant darkness
of an unsated soul
gathered on the back
of a parched tongue
sullied wordless


Rising up through
a dusty hieroglyph corridor
through an unlocked
labyrinth gate;  vestige echoes
from somewhere left behind
in an incomprehensible
abandoned wake


It's getting harder and harder
   for an insatiable soul to breathe ...
   climbing up a tree trunk―
up within the silence
of the listening tree


  Toes dug into
the rough bark furrows ―
fingers reaching upwards
beyond their deepest known grasp


A shadow stranded
out on a hangin' bough
hearkening without ears that hear:
“perhaps they’ll listen now“  
the wingless bird sings
in psalms that fly away
on tattered feathers
over untamed waters roil


Back to nature’s waning youth,
the bough bends unbroken
to taste the freedom
of the wild absolving seas



Jesse Stillwater
June     2018

the Silence became
like an old lesson learned

a broken heart intones
a voiceless song
resonating a refrain of Silent echoes
in a voice that never heard a word
yet spoke so clearly ... lingering
in realms of subtle ambiance

soundless remnants
stacked neatly as
building blocks;  
another brick in a wall,
already too tall to see beyond—
growing like a bunker
without a sense of safe harbor

as the Silence became
time and space,
a stillness beset the melancholy air
as if a world without song
foreboding an unpredictable storm
beget vestiges of broken windfall,
reticent leftovers hushed after a gale

s i l e n t l y

an acorn fallen  — became a mighty Oak

a wind-broke twig — became a weeping willow

a neglected child — became mother nature's son

the Silence became
        a blind prophet —
in its voice held forth
smatterings of truth
and undertones of an unrequited
fool’s hope

the Silence became
a strong, abrupt rush of wind
uttering voiceless exhalations of breath;
a hovering dawn mist
    befallen after a summer storm—
surrounding all in all
bedewed in a feigned peace


... the unabated sounds of silence
become


Jesse Stillwater ... July 20th, 2018