@quiet_pages
LAKE
Lying under the fog as if asleep / A colour between grey and silver and green
ROSE
Reaching through the trellis for the light / Opening one petal at a careful time
LAMP
Lamp on and everything else made secondary / A habit now to reach for it at dusk
PEACE
Pulling inward to the wordless center / Each breath becoming simpler and more full
BREAD
Best when the crust breaks away cleanly / Rising through the first quiet hour of morning
BRAVE
Bearing forward into the uncertain / Refusing to let fear have the last word
LAMP
Lamp on and the evening begins properly / A different kind of light than the rest of the day
FROST
Forming in the night on every surface / Reaching over the grass with cold white fingers
WALK
Weather guessed wrong and the jacket not enough / Around the park once and then once more
WALK
Wednesday morning colder than expected / Around the block once more for no reason
PRIDE
Passing through the fire and surviving / Rising like the smoke from what burned
ROSE
Reaching past the gate toward the open road / Open even in the days before the rain
DOOR
Draught coming under it in November / Opened before the bell has stopped ringing
OCEAN
Old salt and the smell of deep distance / Currents pulling everything toward the dark
ABOVE
All the larger picture only shows to those who step back far enough / Beneath every crisis is a pattern that is also teaching you
FIRE
Finally the long cold night has a center / In the sparks each small star finds its end
WIND
Wearing down the stone cliff into sand / In the wheat field it writes its name in circles
DIARY
December pages always more detailed somehow / Ink slightly different in the entries after the move
VALE
Very still when the morning mist is in it / A sheltered fold the hills have made for quiet
MOON
Midnight opens like a silver eye / Over the hills a pale glow rises
HEAL
Healing is not getting back to where you were before / Every wound that closes leaves the tissue stronger than before
DIARY
December pages always more detailed somehow / Ink slightly different in the entries after the move
SONG
Stuck in the head since the morning commute / Only the tune not the title or the words
TEA
Taken without sugar since last year / Every sip a kind of pause
TRAIN
The platform where everyone stares at the floor / Rushing past the back of ordinary houses
MERCY
Moving past the right to punish / Every debt forgiven quietly
WIND
With all the gentleness of a door left open / It moves the curtain and the candle and the heart
SAND
Scattered by the gale into our eyes / All the castles gone before the tide
DUSK
Done with blue the sky begins its red / Under the ash trees the first moths stir
MARSH
Mist hanging low above the reed beds / All the wildfowl settling for the night
MOON
Moving the ocean without touching it / Over the frozen field it casts no warmth
ALWAYS
A truth held over time reveals its permanence in the holding / Lasting things do not require proving every time they are questioned
DEW
Drawn from the night air onto the cold blade / Even the spiderwebs are jewelled at dawn
NEAR
Nothing profound is hiding somewhere distant from you now / Everything you need to understand is present in this moment
PATH
Puddles avoided the same way every time / A shortcut that only saves thirty seconds
WHOLE
What is broken can be gathered into something new and true / Healing does not mean returning to before the fracture
MIND
More is held inside you than the conscious part can see / In the unseen layers, patterns older than your thoughts
SWEET
Settling into something long awaited / Warm as the voice of someone loved
LUNCH
Later than planned but still welcome / Usually the same thing on Wednesdays
BIKE
Breathing harder than expected on the bridge / Into the wind with the bag cutting into the shoulder
OPEN
Offering space inside yourself for what you do not know / Places not yet visited exist inside the self
MOON
Moving the ocean without touching it / Over the frozen field it casts no warmth
DANCE
Dinner finished and the kitchen still warm / Arms lifted for no reason other than the beat
BEND
Bending without breaking is the lesson of the older trees / Every force that does not shatter you teaches you your range
YEARN
Yearning doesn't know the art of letting go / Each night it wakes before the morning does
SLEEP
Somewhere between awake and nowhere / Last thought always the most random
BLISS
Beyond the reaching and the wanting / Landing in a moment that is whole
RAGE
Running past the point where calm was possible / A wall of heat across the chest and throat
GALE
Grabbing the last leaves and throwing them far / Agitating the whole field into silver
MARSH
Mist hanging low above the reed beds / All the wildfowl settling for the night