One Waxing Weapon

from Old English Rune Poem

xv (eolxh)

Elk-sedge is found     most often in a fen
it waxes in water      and wounds severely
burns in the blood     of each man’s body
who with his hand      takes hold of it

~ Anonymous, translated by Miller Oberman

One Frictioned Footing

I would often think how like a smooth slope any form of art is and of the amount of effort the artist must expend in order to keep from sliding back to where the footing is easier. 

~ Czeslaw Milosz

One Grass-Sewn Wound

from vesper 

By Iryna Shuvalova

...
in the end every wound is simply a ditch
a groove in the ground from which a long stubborn root has been torn
a burrow from which a fox has been smoked and chased endlessly through rainy fields
a rut carved by a helpless wheel in a sodden road

soon the wind the rain will come for it and the grass the grass
the birch goosefoot dog-grass burdock hemlock will sew the uneven edges together
the earth will lick its grazed memory
with its coarse green tongue

and so we too
forget to hate as we sleep
and simply grow like grass
covering the earth
with our clinging brittle
superfluous
love 

 ~ Translated by Uilleam Blacker | More