Ballade on Leavetaking
I saw a hilltop, years ago Half-toppled with continuous gust, And every time that breeze would blow- This is not boring you, I trust- The grass reached up in wanderlust For where the wind and I would track. My shoes still smell of that...
Rest Less
Cold clouds coiling around the pregnant moon. Night is calling to me. It is rising. It is soon. Secret scents nocturnal up are swelling, and above The moon rolls like a mirror of the face of her I love. I will not go outside tonight, will nor...
Ballade Against Cheesemongery
The grocer's, for $6.95 per pound Harvarti sells, in blocks of creamy beige Bespeckled with unthinkables (well ground Or crushed) like nuts, or wine, or sage And rosemary. At this I briefly rage Then pass it o'er for cheap varieties My...
Colony Collapse Disorder
I hunted with the children of the sun Who hunt the liquid gold. I saw them turn, Like furnace sparks made flesh, to rise and run As swift as their sun's rays that ever burn, To take pursuit again. I saw their stores Stuffed but to bursting...
Evensong for Flock and Pack
Save me a place by the fireside, love, For nightfall's outrun me again. There's miles upon miles I must walk somehow, There's burdens on burdens I'm carrying now, And when I come home--which I will, I vow-- I'll be needing that fireside then. For...
Curse on a Deserving Land
Dark clouds gather at the edge of the sky. We have one last reckoning, you and I. And you've never met me, you don't know my name, But you are my murderer just the same. In the dust was my living. Unto dust I return. And when have you shown the...
Ragnarok - XIV
Varr broke the silence first. "You saw him, then. Our lord is yet alive. I had not dared To think the question, lest I should answer. But the Old Man lives yet. So lives our strength." Shane muttered quietly "Not he alone." And when they looked at...
Ragnarok - XXVI
The Sulfur Carrier had dug its claws Into the cliff face, on either side of The shallow crevice where the Old Man stood At bay. The rock walls were collapsing in. When he had thrust his spear into the breach To wedge it open, it had buckled and...
Ragnarok - XIX
Somewhere, it was winter. Stars were lost Above the mottled, slate-hard clouds. The streets Were glazed with colorless lamplight. The air Was weary cold, and smelled of apathy. Somewhere it was January, or Some time that felt like it. Beside the...
Ballade of the Recently Dispossessed
I planted apple trees between the shadow of the pines I lit the lanterns, scrubbed the sun-starved windows of their scum For aye, this house was emptiness, and this home would be mine But promises are lies and jests when truth with autumn comes. ...
Ragnarok - XXIII
Somewhere, amongst the ruins of ruins The legions of dishonored dead, hissing As might an immolated corpse upon A burning ship, at cold saltwater's touch, With agonizing slowness flung themselves Against the hated company who held, Though...
Sunstroke
We heard of him in fairy tales, Unfinished epics, songs in braille. From all ends of the ending earth We tracked him to this place. We each believed the others fools. But all believe: those are the rules. At last his trail, Like...