Category: writing

  • For you

    Photo by Adarsh Kummur on Unsplash

    You’ll find me at moorwanders, following smalltrails and playing at touchstone for the only thing that is real. Here, elder ways draw to base: flame crosses chill, rain mists slick the stone, and the growl of winds between the ways. Here, the animals sing underhill, a call to slumber.

    I know you tire at the mention of Raven, but they are here too.

    The best magic is that which seems not to be magic at all, and it lingers here like it did in the old, doing a lot of nothing much at all: wind waves barley, skies trading slate for blue and then back again, small birds ducking in and out of the tall grass and the lone tree upon the hill. Them, big oak and me as all acorn, resting underneath and waiting.

    For what? you ask.

    Well, if you must need know… for you.

  • tossing a rune — 08aug25

    fehu
    giving away books
    to little libraries
    to show my kin
    sharing make us richer
    than accumulation

    Another rune poem of mine, where the rune is selected at random.

    Today’s rune is fehu, which has a core meaning of “cattle” or a more generalized “livestock”, which was a representation of personal wealth. Wealth and prosperity was valued, but was looked down upon when accumulation appeared to be excessive, greedy, miserly or turned to hoarding, especially when those around you were lacking.

  • into alone

    Photo by Kevin Hessey on Unsplash
    slipping blackthorn,
    back to the gloam
    to step out for a smoke

    no kinsfolk, this wyrding
    only feather & loam
    only shadow & stone

  • waiting for maple

    Photo by Tokyo Kohaku on Unsplash
    i have gone lost
    down the bones
    etched at kohl
    in following many
    elder ways to a place
    called shadow

    she is beyond name &
    speaks in fingers
    under the canopy green
    skin earthstained red
    waiting for maple
    to bleed

  • Half-penny thoughts | 07aug25

    Somewhere in Alaska, my photo

    My mind keeps going back to when I was driving through Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia. Not to disparage Alberta or Saskatchewan, but those landscapes were too “familiar”. Really, once you’ve seen one endless field of a particular crop, they all take on a similar character and we have a hell of a lot of examples of that landscape when you’re away from the river valleys in the upper midwestern states of North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin. My eye craved something different from what I could view a half-hour’s drive from home. And so, the last leg of my trip was not nearly as visually stimulating as the foreleg of the same.

    (more…)

  • ever • more

    a path in the middle of a dark forest
    Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
    oak • mistletoe
    me • you
    all • dream
    ever • more
    into • wood
    we • go

  • hear gates

    Photo by Brett Wharton on Unsplash
    seeking a stop making sense
    to snail ride a razor’s edge
    staccato clipped my words trip
    under themselves again

    these old ones do not care
    for your piety, no
    they want to embrace storm

    clacking bones trice
    can you hear gates?

  • shedding

    Photo by Cornelia Munteanu on Unsplash
    we glide fields
    wend the trees
    crest the tor and
    stretch wide mouths
    to sing

    this unpeopling
    of ourselves celebrates
    forest fires burning
    inside our chests,
    shriven

    without names
    these nature gods
    shove hours aside
    giving all to
    heartwood

    shed the wire
    marking barbed against
    soft flesh
    and fly…

  • october is

    Photo by Alberto Arroyo on Unsplash
    as we draw speechless
    under growing hallows
    full moon and mistletoe
    summer gives to autumn

    ol' john, he sentinels
    green still in the barley
    hiding us our shadow
    away until the dawn

    darning fingers cast weaves
    for october is our song...

  • Thunder coming

    red lightning flashing on black sky
    Photo by Martinus on Pexels.com

    Thunder the skies drum to rumble and many ears blind to the coming storm, yet calling some home to wrap themselves under both cloak and shield. Come the mists that deaden sight but for those with the spears driven to pierce.

    We cast to birch, cleave to stones rising grey in undergrowth. Her rasp cuts the winds as she calls forth. Children! Children, come in!

    Let the hunters flail; they are not our kin. Let them blindstep the pathways, missing us, their quarry, just beyond the thin.