It's Still Life

The Architecture of a Moment

Notes: Rooted in the oldest English tradition, Anglo-Saxon accentual verse follows the rhythm of breath and heartbeat rather than syllable or rhyme, where meaning is carried by cadence, image, and pause.

The Architecture of a Scar

I stare out the window
at winter stripping away autumn’s last gold,
a violence of wind,
a theft of light.

And I see it now.
This is not merely a season I dislike.
It is the enemy of my line.
The same cold that took them
now presses its ghostly face against the glass,
whispering of a debt it believes is still owed.

I bear it,
not with a shiver, but a stillness.

A fortress waiting out a siege.
The vibrant, leaf-strewn joy of me
goes quiet, goes deep underground,
a root clutching a secret warmth.

I wait for spring.
Not for the flowers, but for the thaw in my blood.
For the sun to feel like a friend again,
and not a liar.

Through this cold
who will sit with me in this fortress
while I am the quiet breath in the dark,

until the earth remembers its heart,
and I remember mine.

This is memory in the bones,
this ancestral scar that winter re-opens.

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The Architecture of a Scar (Anglo-Saxon Accentual Verse)

I watch the wind
strip autumn’s gold,
light stolen clean
by winter’s hand.

Not just a season,
a sworn enemy;
cold that claimed
the lives I loved
press its ghost
to the glass again.
Whispers of debts
it thinks I owe.

I bear it now
not with shiver,
but fortress-still,
stone in a storm.

The bright, leaf-rich
joy of my days
goes deep underground.
A root gripping
its hidden heat
in the frozen dark.

I wait for spring,
not flowers rising,
but thaw in blood,
sun turned honest,
light as friend
not liar’s flare.

Through this cold,
who keeps the watch?
Who sits beside me
in shadowed halls
while I breathe quiet
in the siege-night?

Until the earth
remembers its heart,
and I recall
the warmth of mine.

An ancestral scar
opened by winter.

---

Written for Writers’ Digest Poem-a-Day Challenge an “anti-love poem”. Poems/prose, some AI/images ©Misky 2006-2025.