Tim Huijts

You who never arrived by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell)

You who never arrived
-Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Stephen Mitchell)

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

and in the end just waves,
and clouds, and light

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

penultimate station
undone by your light

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

by your pond at night
fireflies dream they are dragons,
stars shelter in trees

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

each dawn
rooted in night

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

this path once not taken
now walked every night

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

each night a field
of moonlit waves

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

broken each morning
dreams die from exposure

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

whisper your tiptoes
to stir my sleep

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

the sky cracking like ice
light itself a dream

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

midnight processions
of fairy queen fire

Photo of a winter landscape through the damp window of a train.

submerged beyond the light
the winter's dream we lived

words embody us -
each time you delete yours
I lose myself

They set up a noise like crickets,
A chattering wise and sweet,
And her hair was a folded flower
And the quiet of love in her feet.
-W.B. Yeats, The Cap and Bells

erased again - fingerburn
wiped empty-handed,
our silence unspoken,
our shadows unseen -
were your words of fire
all written in smoke?

gone
one year, and you

Feel me there, breathing with you, my smile kissing your crown, my cheek a lamb for your temple; let my silence be yours, find my words on every page, hear my pulse in every second. No absence, no silence, no shadow can sever our connection. It was you before all of this; and it will be you always.

frost upon the gate—
your hand warms mine in silence,
dawn drifts through our breath

~Aiko

I walk slower
hoping you’ll appear
winter road

~Akari

silence

.

naoki sasaki
ikebana artist

Photo of mistletoe-shaped lights lighting bare trees in the dark.

'Time falls and falls through endless space, to when we are.' - Carol Ann Duffy.

As long as there is life, there is hope. Happy new year

New Year Carol Ann Duffy

Goodbye to 2025!

A 🧵 of New Year and related poems for you. Please do add.

First up, Carol Ann Duffy

'I drop the dying year behind me like a shawl
and let it fall'

❤️

Tomorrow will bring winter's first snow, again. Walking my hollow and hilly lands, I will feel you on every frost-blossomed path, see you in every falling snowflake; and my lips will catch you softly, melting like dreams, and taste fire in these words as I murmur them. Hope and love, until the end.

I still read those words for you, even if you can no longer hear them. I found you, and lost you; but our love, our connection can never be lost. Through spring's apple blossoms, in summer's long dappled grass, past autumn's golden apples, I will find you and keep finding you, wherever I go, always.

I imagine you there, in those fields, our fields, tugging my sleeve, pointing at the sheep that have suddenly appeared, laughing as I breathe more sheep for you in the frosty air, each ground-bound cloud a warm hug to nestle your smile in. And your fingers in mine; your fingers in mine.

Through darkness, to the light.

till time and times are done

Snow is covering us. Close your eyes and sleep. Close your eyes and dream.
This is one story. There will be another.

Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods

You bring such beauty, dearest soul. Please be you, always.

P.S. I close my eyes and see a seagull in the desert, high, against unbearably blue sky. There is hope in the past. I’m writing to you all the time, I am writing with both hands, day and night.

Franz Wright
#poetry

black and white photo of a white wall with a bronze sculpture of an angel holding a feather on the left, and shadows of barren tree branches on the right.

hope
still feathered