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 Meandering in 3 Parts

This path is a slow green thought,
unfolding from my kitchen window
to The Apostles — twelve oaks in patient row,
whose roots have tasted Roman smoke,
the black bread of a furnace long gone cold.

I almost called them mine,
but they belong to ivy’s loving hold,
to wagon ruts fossil-deep in the lane,
to the village church whose stones
have heard the same prayers since the 1100s,
worn smooth as river stones.

Time does not march here.
It meanders.
Loops past old charcoal pits,
brushes a Saxon ploughshare,
then rests a century
in the church’s shade.

It moves like the lane,
not toward endings,
but a slow, great circle:
a wagon wheel turning
around a hub of roots,

where past and present drink
from the same deep well.

To stand here is to feel the spiral’s pull.
To know I’m not walking forward,
but within.
Within the rings of an oak.
Within the rut of a cart.
Within a stone-remembered prayer.

I am not leaving.
I am returning.
I am another turn
in the meander.

---

The Architecture of Meandering #1 (Anglo-Saxon Accentual Verse)

This path is thought,
slow-green winding,
from kitchen sill
to oaken Apostles —
twelve patient sentries,
roots deep-drinking
Roman smoke
and furnace ghosts.

I’d call them mine,
yet ivy owns them;
cart-rut scars
and churchyard stone
claim the years
with older rights.
Prayers worn smooth
as river rock.

Time here turns,
never straight marching —
meandering like
a dreaming stream,
circles charcoal,
Saxon iron,
rests a lifetime
in holy shade.

The lane, like time,
loops without end,
a wagon wheel
round root-dark heart,
past and present
drinking together
from one deep
unwintering well.

I walk within:
oak-ring memory,
cart-rut echo,
stone-bound prayer
beneath my feet.

I cannot leave.
I return again,
another turn
in the slow meander.

---

The Architecture of Meandering #2 (Anglo-Saxon Accentual Verse — Flint & Bone)

A path like thought,
slow, green winding
from kitchen dawn
to oaken Apostles tree.

Twelve stood witness,
roots deep in centuries,
breathing old smoke
of Roman hearths.

Not mine to claim,
ivy holds them,
cart-ruts own them,
church-stones guard them.

Prayers still linger,
smooth as riverbed.
Time worn quiet
under weathered walls.

Here time bends,
circles like water,
loop and settle.

Past charcoal hollows,
Saxon iron buried;
shadow rests long
in parish shade.

Lanes like wheels,
round and returning,
hub of roots
where ages drink.

I walk the spiral,
inward —
in oak-ring memory,
in the rut’s echo,
in stone-kept breath
of kneeling years.

Not leaving
but returning,
again and again,
turn of the wheel.

---

Written for Writers’ Digest Poem-a-Day Challenge prompt word “Meandering”. Poems/prose, some AI/images ©Misky 2006-2025.