kelp balloon

and a rainhorse

Dear Subscribers,

Gaps of light are sifting the fallow world. I had to pull over on the way home from the Christmas service to take a picture for a friend. When I looked around, it seemed half the church had pulled over too, to make sure I was okay. I thought they were worried about a flat tire, but my friend says they could see I was mere steps away from wandering into fairyland. (I am still here, held back by the gravity of their affection.)

A few times, absorbed in awe, I’ve become aware of an audience. This was the first time it’s been a line of cars -- it’s usually birds or cattle. Reader, you are worth more than many cattle (though cattle are nothing to sneeze at: and I did not sneeze at them); but I felt the same abashedness on substack when I realised I have subscribers.

I actually use substack more as a reader than as a writer. My subscriptions and posts in notes introduce me to so much that I want to explore, or just keep holding. I wish I could slip words and pictures in my pockets. Pockets are mendable, but memory frays into holes that I can’t mend.

I do update a wordpress site with places where my own work occasionally appears. But I am always trying to write a better poem, always aware of falling short. Right now on my “second desk” I have Richard Wilbur, Ben Jonson, Euripides, Samuel Menashe, Joy Davidman, Robert Frost. (My husband says it was a mistake to let me set up a card table in the living room.) I can’t compete. I can only receive, and not give up.

So, clarifying focus in 2026, I decided this will be my last substack post (though I’ll continue using my notes). Below are a couple whimsical efforts with my sincerest thanks, if you are reading this. I feel overwhelmed by such kind attention. Thank you.

In the love that moves the sun and the other stars,

Isabel

heron at dawn

Aimless in the light’s preamble

watch the wildness of the moon

stepping shy, conjectural

where the enmeshed waves have strewn

seaweed with its floating bauble;

crescent neck, and crooking ankle

by the kelp and its balloon.

Wild light, loft your sail’s triangle.

Drift away, dawn’s waning rune.

~

rainhorse

And now a cloud is nickering

on the roof.

A bridle moon is flickering.

Every limpid hoof

is coming down.

The night’s flank dimples

where it grazes sound.