Lake Swan

The below was written almost a year ago for Nanowrimo 2015.  I had grand schemes for a novel, but this was all that resulted.  Forgive its unedited state - let me know if you see typos.  

  The hills of Phyrwold are empty places.  They are always empty, of life wild or domesticated to subservience, or of death pervasive in decaying roots and bleeding rivers – emptiness instead holds her pale, pliant hands around the sky, a terrarium of silent fog and silenter rain to paint the trees in silver.  Empty roads carve straight lines through deserted wheat fields and barbarous fences; an empty hamlet lies in the valley of a long-dried tarn, where not even ice will find its way in February snows.  The emptiness of Phyrwold makes the gray clouds seems as playful children in the sky, racing over the trees so quickly as to not see anything under their feet – there is nothing to see in any case, only the presence of trees is deceiving.

Sudden Thought

Keep me out of the touch of sirens
black holes
red suns
abject circles shutting supplely out
possibilities which I believe in because
they are not mine
and finally
saved from scorching surety
seamlessly sent in from past the
sides of sanity
safety becomes certain
(or certainly clear)
and every stare of starlight becomes dear.

MH // 2014

Sunrise

"To see ourselves as others see us."

In the deep overcast of a quiet night, I sometimes see the past events of the day shudder past me, almost as real to vision as if the things were happening again, the people’s voices wandering up and down again, the undefined semblance of their bodies walking up and down the front of the room, or perched on chairs in the back, in the same way they had done so that morning, now in less certainty, of course. And I don’t dwell much on the idea that they see me in the same, repeated reality. I have not gone so far as to assume their moments of idleness run on the same tracks; in fact, to perhaps my own loss, I take the opposite for granted. It must be that only a few of us live this double life of watching, apart from simply being, and should this assumption someday be shown wrong, we would suffer – it is an isolated temperament, and we thrive on isolation.

MH // spring 2013

Resurrection...still need to read this.  I love the opening sentences.

| azaleas ∧ moss |

What If

I'll lose the draw in a
what-if statement
(What if these thoughts are true?)
Then fight on, since
your quiet stare is
all we see of you

Two gloomy weeks broke
the light fixtures
(What if you saw their glow?)
I stop, then leave,
dismiss the pain
of trying hard to know

Just when, inexplicably,
footsteps cross
(What if you saw it, too?)
The faintest word
won't go unheard
by me, and much less you

I'll remember long,
long afterwards
(What if you don't forget?)
The strange half-second
dreamlike words
the stopwatch can't reset

So much the worse
So much the best
(What if you somehow know?)
Then stamp it in
your passport book
and I will not forgo

from writing on a
piece of quad paper
What if - what if - what if?
And softly set it
into code and
send it far adrift

MH // spring 2014