This is a poetry column that will be updated with new content every two weeks. Writing is a deeply personal activity, especially for me, and so this is a place meant to be comfortable and welcoming, even if these are mere words. I welcome you to relax and enjoy the fruits of this garden of mine.

Prepare Yourself

April 16, 2026

This week in the garden, we look to the future in two tongues.

So now let us be

Cautious

Though Time forbids us

And speaks

Bereite dich vor

Before

The typhoon arrives

We go

To hold our homes down

Or drown,

Oder ertrinken,

And be

Forgotten, down in

The cave

All the way below

Watching

The dying day go

As Time

Runs loose like threads through

Our hands

Onto

Our lands, Sie gehen,

Spilling

Newly gone again

Are our

Gifts from the cosmos

Those of

Life and Constancy

Those that

We had just grasped on

But what

To do about what

Remains?

Time looks to us, says

Leb dein Leben.

Hypnagogic Omniscience

April 2, 2026

This week in the garden, we ponder sleep.

As you lay your eyes down

And close your body tight

You feel the weight of the world world fall away

As the weight of fabric piles upon you

Your head sinks into the pillow

Warmth soaks from your skin into your flesh

There is heat within and cold without

As darkness settles down

The sandman sprinkles stardust to slow your stasis

And the energy

The tension

Of the day bleeds away

From your joints and your muscles and your mind

Staining the sheets a fictional red

And the mind

In desperation from deprivation

Conjures fantasy and brews sensation

As you fall into nothing

And lie still forever

And you feel everything shift

For an infinitesimal moment

Moment

Moment

Moment of closure

There’s Heaven in Those Mountains

March 2, 2026

This week in the Garden, the speaker finds themselves in a conflict of beliefs, looking to the mountains for answers.

Scents of pine

Tell me they’re divine

You walk along their path

Without a hint of wrath

A layer of heaven’s up here

But I don’t believe it.

‘Cuz clouds drew near

Before the thunder hit

And the rain sung its lullaby

Even though it’d soon die

A shard of heaven’s up there

But I don’t believe it.

‘Cuz when that bird came by, from where

We’ll never know, the pieces won’t fit

Its blue wings broke under a dream

No mourning, don’t mend the seam

A spark of heaven’s in the water

But I don’t believe it.

‘Cuz the Sun set itself under

Moonlight, climbing from a pit

And the nights are cold, so cold

Up where the trees grow old

A spot’s up there for me

But I barely believe it.

‘Cuz they never healed my bloody knee

When I got bit

Yet the flowers felt the same

And they knew my name

They said a home’s up there for me

And I hope I believe it.

‘Cuz I climbed so far to find my key

And upon the stones was writ

By the creek of tears

Abandon all fears

Ye who enter.

And I believe it.

Elegy of Forhiit

February 18, 2026

This week in the Garden, I tell the tale of a fallen kingdom using a narrative style of poetry I usually do not write in.

In shaded wood, how tall the Vuntri stood

O’er the tops of green Agefair hood

‘Neath great old stone whose mountains rang

Their mighty Wall of hist’ry sang

We who were proud of our gilded towers

With golden gardens, glowing with flowers

The sun had shone throughout our home

In dark had stars in glist’ning dome

But in kings’ minds, ego and want would breed

So flame they sought to fill their spoiled greed

Into the wood they sent their guard

By blades of fate their lives were barred

Under the eaves and caves had they been sent

To break the wall whom Vuntri souls been lent

A piece of it cast into night

And soon they came, the beastly blight

A wretched writhing tide of fang and plague

The cities broke, our sorry souls would beg

The kings had died, perished in gold

Their deaths lost in the songs of old

Upon the brows of shattered lords we wept,

‘Twas we who cast unto the hordes bereft,

Of metal wings in heart and hand,

They sent us out, to stain with blood the land.

And thus we fell, o good Forhiit

In hate we wrought our own defeat.

Stories

February 2, 2026

The world finds it hard to remember

About the smallest places

Rain hits the roof

And the sun still shines

The door creaks open

The boxes strewn across the floor

The posters upon the walls

And the lights around the window

The accolades, the trophies,

The books, the toys

The paint can peel

And the books can gather dust

The posters can tear

And the lights can fall

The sheets can fray

And the toys cast astray

The walls can crumble

But the memories will cling there

The beautiful little things can burn

But the stories remain

And I can go back to the start

And live again.

But the clock does not run backward

As the world wishes

And so much can change

In so little time

As sand slips through the cracks

As raindrops shatter ‘gainst the tide

But in spite of the storm

The memories, dissidents

Fighting forever, hoping

Beyond hope itself

That they can shine beyond our deaths

Oh, how hard I hope.