Tag: rewilding

  • mine november

    conceptual portrait of hands with red thread
    Photo by Amirhossein Kianbakht on Pexels.com
    her embrace mine november
    the only real remain
    slender pale her fingers,
    hair her ebon black
    her crimson at my throat
    here, only sleepwalking
    dawns the midnight sun
    only slowtalking brings light
    whispers,
    you cannot begin to know

  • this spellbound

    Photo by Connor DeMott on Unsplash
    i eigengrau glyph my skin
    sun-pocked stained within
    carve nails with needles
    set quill to down & begin

    mutterchant words forgot
    shuttled off to fen to rot
    leeched a heart of taint
    spirit thorn reflect of elf-shot

    so, this spellbound
    sworn to the stone
    so, this spellbound
    ash, thorn and bone

  • Rewilding: grounding

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

    Lately, I’ve been feeding a greater need to improve my grounding. In the increasingly chaotic and manic world we have stumbled into over the past decade and a half, I feel like I have lost some of the ability I used to have to ground myself. Chances are that it is more likely that my abilities have not changed so much as they have not adapted to the current state of affairs — they are a little off-key might be the better way to think of it.

    (more…)

  • smudge away

    sage bundles in a pot for smudging
    Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash
    i root, now
    i sun
    i river oak
    through

    smudge away
    smudge away
    wash away
    stain

    i paint, now
    i slumber
    i stone sit
    through

    i river oak
    through

  • Threefold returns

    Photo by Cornelia Munteanu on Unsplash

    All that you give returns threefold, or so they say.

    Or they used to, anyway. I do not know if that still holds true. Sometimes it does not seem to.

    The world has moved on in a lot of ways. Maybe such concepts just refuse to stick around anymore.

    I do not know.

    Laughter. That uncertain, awkward laughter one uses while scratching their head and looking down at their shoes. Are those my shoes? I suppose they must be. Heh. Alrighty. Hello shoes.

    I seem to be staring at my shoes a lot in life. Awkward laughter and all.

    Trees… They do not concern themselves with these things. Nor do big granite stones.

    And they do not have shoes to awkwardly laugh about.

    I then give myself to the wisdom of trees and stones. Perhaps I’ll grok at least some of the things yet.

  • all bone at song

    Photo by pedram ahmadi on Unsplash
    i shadow as maiden
    i shadow as lake
    stone waters under
    of granite my eye

    pock and pit
    chip and ash
    fleck and form
    all bone at song

    i blood as my earthing
    i blood as my weir
    catch acorn when thorn 
    at river we heart

  • Campfire sessions — 02may25

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    A fog had descended on camp. It happens at times and, when it does, the fog reflects the flames in such a way that the immediate surroundings appear aglow but the campfire is quickly swallowed by the thick fog standing a few dozen yards away. I did not expect anyone to find me tonight as a result of being well within the betweens. So I warmed my hands and contemplated the thorns still visible on one side of the clearing: daggered things that would have screamed of a sepsis incurred within hours of being pricked by their sharp tips.

    The weald likes to keep its secrets. I may be the nominal warden of this place, but that does not mean that I know anything more than I need to about the darker spaces within. Of course, if there were need of the blackthorn’s protection, I would find I could slip within the hedge’s folds like a chickadee or wren. The weald protects its own as much as it wards.

    That is when a familiar and small voice spoke in my left ear.

    Hey, they said. Thought you could stand some company.

    (more…)

  • nightwash

    a path in the middle of a dark forest
    Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
    underwater flowing
    over silt and stone
    rub skin, stream wash
    rub mud, you and me
    make land, this flesh
    make river, this blood
    rub wash, stream skin
    rub silt, me and you

    can't you hear them crying?
    can't you hear their scream?
    flesh and blood and silt and stream
    spirits in the night—

    originally posted 23jan2021

    I am taking a short break from blogging and have scheduled a few older poems to fill up the empty spaces in the interim.

  • an autumn stream

    Photo by Ronin on Unsplash
    the trails, ever twisting
    sometimes, even, to
    turn upon themselves
    — there are times we need to
    be reminded of old scenery
    it seems…

    soon, the autumn stream
    tumbling over rock & branch
    is on offer, familiar
    singing to me as i flow
    myself with it upstream

  • one of a few — 29apr25

    beithe
    paper bark and
    fine hair flutters
    on the pale winds
    chasing ripples
    over a secret lake

    For a change of pace, I decided to revisit ogam/ogham for a poetry prompt tool. As with the Elder Futhark runes, I randomly select one of the ogam fid as a prompt for a bit of micropoetry.

    Because I have a poorly-developed sense of humor, the title of this post refers to a variant of the word, fid, “few”. While still in common usage, “few” is not technically accurate to describe the letter — but I like my wordplay.

    Beithe (in Old Irish, beith in modern Irish) means “birch”. The fid has a number of cryptic meanings depending on the kenning or its inclusions in the medieval word lists of the filli, including: white, pheasant, livelihood, “withered foot with fine hair”, and “beauty of the eyebrow”, amongst many, many others.

    I do not embrace Robert Graves’ mystical meanings as I feel they are not based in scholarship and that they disagree with people who have made a lifetime study of the ogam. While there is evidence of possible filli-coding within the letters (per the lists poets were made to memorize), there is little evidence that magical meaning was the intent and the association with magic appears to be a modern invention… But that is another post.

    Perhaps I’ll eventually bring fid back and finish my in-depth exploration of their meanings.