Category: prose

  • roads and halls

    sage bundles in a pot for smudging
    Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash

    I walked the beaded hallways red with you and you did not see, not really. Yes yes that’s very beautiful you said as we walked not the beauty of buckskin and ruddy skin. You saw only the patterned beads.

    You did not hear the heartbeat drums causing the red hallways to thrum and pulse as you raced towards the light, making sure you could say you had experienced it all for yourself, but you did not hear, nor see.

    You did not feel their blood on your skin, nor the sweat, nor the tears. You said you knew it all, had read it in a book you couldn’t recall the title of, nor author. And you pulled me along, not letting me linger to “feel the feels”. You told me you would find the book in the library for me so I could feel.

    I reached for the medicine up in the night, but you bound me to prevent “my escape”.

    I spoke to ravens and stones.

    You just stared at me.

  • Market missing

    I miss the Market today.

    Pikes Market, Seattle
    Photo by Sabine Ojeil on Unsplash

    It would be closed by now, of course. But I would have skipped out of work early and spent the afternoon window shopping comics, trinkets, maybe some herbs or incense. Walk down to the pier, although it was a stranger the last time I walked there because of the missing viaduct.

    I’d buy a couple of börek to take back to the apartment, reheat for dinner, salad or quinoa with tahini dressing on the side. I was never a very good vegetarian back then — I couldn’t give up my cheese or butter, but I rarely ate meat when I could visit the Market. Honestly, I rarely ate at all.

    (more…)

  • Campfire Sessions — 06 apr 25

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    It’s time to be off, they said.

    There was not much left of the once-long stick I had been using to poke at the dying embers for a spell. Each time I poked, bright orange sparks would jump from the rippling ruby coals. For no particular reason, doing so brought me a flash of joy.

    I have always been a firebug. Maybe that was why.

    I turned to Raven, their feathers ruddy in the glow of the remains of my campfire. Off where? I asked.

    You know, they said.

    (more…)

  • To Stone

    a path in the middle of a dark forest
    Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash

    You and I, we hung moon in arctic turquoise skies above the gravestones of friends buried in the Evernight. For remembrance, certainly, but also for that our own souls could the words to move on. To find our smoke and ride the starry road North to Stone.

    Ancestors, they came to our Gathering Flame; those sitting as were wont to sit, those standing as were wont of standing. All sought the Strange dancing in the flames, be they feather, flesh or fur. Even the alder man came, his sap reddening ran.

    And they spoke at length for fourteen days of gloam, each giving words to carry to the below or for how they must be brought. We gathered and, just before the dawn meant for leaving shores, all gathered and sang to welcome the sun adorned.

    One step, then four, we entered wearing our horns and gave to follow the floes, leaving the snowfells behind. And Ancestors? They watched, forlorn, each wishing in their own way our safe journey on to Stone.

  • A mercuric lake

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    I have many thoughts trapped inside my head. I cannot free them because they are thoughts without words to go with them, or the words that might go with them are inadequate to express those thoughts. Trying to express those thoughts feels too much like, as Alan Watts would have put it, trying to bite my own teeth.

    If I managed to construct those thoughts into something that could be understood, if I could find the words and unstop this mute mouth — would anyone read them anyway? I mean, really read. I am fairly certain that they cannot be words that can be heard, so I do not dare speak.

    I have for a very long time tried to personally touch these thoughts, hoping to better understand people who struggled in much the same way as I do now to express inexpressible thoughts. Now that I am on that path, I understand their struggle. There are no words, we need a new language altogether to get at the words needed to explain explain explain. Maybe, I think these thoughts can only be expressed sideways, with a slipstream sense.

    After I slip into the wilds, do you think you could find me? Would you want to?

    The buzz of insects over a mercuric lake…