Tag: rewilding

  • shards, iv

    these steel cut shores
    carved in black sand
    whisper hush of tides
    and heavy of storms.

    'black rain comes.'
    more slight than whisper,
    more ragged than thorn.

    hand grasps of hand,
    lingers as wraiths
    for which are known.

  • casting runes — 05aug26

    ehwaz
    sitting statue still
with sunken hollows
after crows came for eyes—
unmoving even still

stepping over cooling ashes
following night songs
leaving the worn behind

    A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.

    Today’s rune is ehwaz, which has a core meaning of “horse”. A horse is often associated with journeys, travel and movement. By extension, it also implies symbiosis with another living creature or fylgja (guardian spirit), and the rune is associated with loyalty or trust. Any undertaken journey may be spatial, emotional or spiritual.

    Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.

  • Campfire Sessions — 03aug26

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    Seeking new places to set campfires within the wode. The old ones leave the ashes cold even where they gather and that is a sign I am meant to move on. And so I pass their hollows and dream deeper and older to ancient wooden trails where even the night finds it hard to take a hold. Into the before, when even the old ones had yet to be born.

    It is Crow and Ash and Stone. Mountain waters gather in pools that go deep on the forever and the raindrops find their way to this dismal home. Water always finds a way, for it is married to Stone.

    (more…)

  • tall naked trees

    dead souls, we
    wraith through
    tall naked trees
    under winter iron
    to our cold fires
    waiting

    someone whispers
    the name you wore
    before you were born

    perhaps, even,
    it was i

    recall, rejoin these
    dead souls, we
    that may seek again
    as we wraith through
    winter's tall naked
    trees

  • listen

    listen:

    were it that you could
    hear these bones
    being etched in
    scrimshaw behind
    my age-cured flesh

    what might you see
    if you could hear?

    a great horned owl
    scrying mantic in
    the deepening night?

    peat bog perfume
    rising from what shadows
    are left to remain?

    what peels bark
    behind blackthorn?

    i gather flint
    in scarred hands
    along with ash and
    charcoal black
    to scratch louder
    runes anew

  • mortal tethers

    tonight, i give over
    surrender to loam & peat
    let mycelium feed while
    slumbering between
    bile & bog, briar & weed
    betwixt both thorn & stone

    slipping deeper,
    even mortal tethers
    may break

  • call in Storm

    feral you, on petite, lithe and narrow
    dancing on the edge of betweens
    with stolen kisses on slender promise
    while others argue, deaf to your muse
    bound within the must and dust of
    parchment giants lining every room

    a wink, a smile, and a theft once more
    then,
    we raise twin hands, call in Storm

  • Wandered wood

    I think you wandered wood with me, back before we were young — your laughter trailing out behind you in scarlet ribbons as I follow, stepping over the old deadfall log, under the lichened overhanging stone. We wore horns, you and I, mine forked fingers and yours living bone, and we tore through the overgrowth, and under ossified bone.

    Hallo, hallo, you said to me, I have become oak. And you stood tall and elder on the hill over the bog. The bone white birch laughed as they swayed under your canopy and the frogs’ voices rose to a terrible storm.

    For my part, I longed to be fox and I curled my burning tail around we for added warmth in the den you offered up for to be my home. I barked as the moon hid her face behind a mask of clouds, content to be held within you.

    And we held things that way until the autumn came and then winterfall, the burning of my tail meant to keep us warm.

    Through cruel months we held.

    It was the waking that broke the spell.

    How I hated that dismal sound. That breaking, shattering our song.

  • drawn

    i stone of bone flint smoke
    i acorn of mandrake
    mistletoe and thorn 
    i mantic the needle pine --
    can you ache of sickle moon?
    then draw me down
    into your loam
    down into your song

  • spirit alone

    echo drops the cave
    shall we deeper delve?
    here, roots still tangle
    writhing their way down
    giving away from doors
    to raw in stone
    to blind all light
    give to silence of bone,
    listen to ticks and
    echo drop, and to
    spirit alone