Words Along the Way:

Poems from the Blackbird Gate

A poem often begins with something small: a stranger’s kindness, a bird with an opinion, the sound of water against stone. Here I gather poems from journeys and ordinary days alike—moments I wanted to linger in, questions I couldn’t quite put down, and little pieces of the world worth carrying home.

Wren River 9/22/26 Wren River 9/22/26

Tabasco

They put a piece of meat
in my glove

and told me
to hold out my hand.

Wren River 9/21/26 Wren River 9/21/26

King’s Quoit

People kept walking.

The sea below them, the green cliffs going on.

Most did not see the stone.

I had crossed an ocean to lie beneath it.

Wren River 9/20/26 Wren River 9/20/26

Bryn Myrddin

Mary Stewart gave me a boy
misunderstood, alone,
who rode his pony up a hill and found a cave.

Wren River 9/20/26 Wren River 9/20/26

Patron Saint of Love

We went looking for coffee
and something sweet
before leaving for Wales.

Wren River 9/20/26 Wren River 9/20/26

Red Route

We came down out of a night
that had somehow become morning

into the hidden country of the airport—

service roads, warehouses,
fences bent inward under years of rain.