Drabble Poems by

Circles, Spirals, Cycles: Only the Beginning

Where do you even begin?

Day 1 Challenge: Soundtrack (March) "Only the Beginning of the Adventure" by Harry Gregson-Williams (from The Chronicles of Narnia)
On Spotify: here
On YouTube: here

Also written for the Tolkien Short Fanworks January challenge 'New Year' and Form: perfect drabble. Posted here

On AO3

Read Circles, Spirals, Cycles: Only the Beginning

The year turns: is turning always:
Circles have no end and no beginning
So mark a start; pick a point
To say the year begins

The world turns: always turning, now
Globe spindled on an axis, spinning time
Ennor and Aman were once conjoined,
Sundered now the plane and sphere

Cycles turn, stars, suns, stones
That sail the upper airs, spiralling
Above the world of Men, the place of Elves and Ainur
In ceaseless dance

The heavens turn, we still beneath
Concentric and eccentric, spin, and counter-spin,
Defining space-time, point and line
What is a year? When does it start?

Seven Waxwings

Written for the Silmarillion Writer's Guild January 2021 Resolutions challenge:
Day 10: Bonus prompts are images for instadrabbling from the Naturalist's Guide to Middle-earth challenge, Sept 2020. Image 1, Waxwings

With many thanks to the SWG Discord denizens for enthusiasm and encouragement.

On AO3 here

Read Seven Waxwings

Seven waxwings in a row
Dressed in red, oh see them go
Father's pride and mother's woe
All but one doth Mandos know

Eldest, youngest fire haired
Like their father fire dared
Oath sworn they, all hope despaired
In that fire were not spared

Clever, cruel and angry three
Pale and dark for all to see
In caverns bright they heard no plea
From their Doom they could not flee

Dark and doleful now but one
Wanders shores and light doth shun
Sings of good and evil done
E're Moon rose, beneath the Sun
And thus the tale doth run

Grey and White Wings

Written for the Silmarillion Writer's Guild January 2021 Resolutions challenge:
Day 10: Bonus prompts are images for instadrabbling from the Naturalist's Guide to Middle-earth challenge, Sept 2020. Image 8, Gull

Day 12: The 12th is a bonus for our Soundtrack challenge from March:
"Tree of Life Suite: Oceano" by Robert Cacciapaglia, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Spotify
YouTube

With many thanks to the SWG Discord denizens for enthusiasm and encouragement.

On AO3 here

Read Grey and White Wings

Over the Falas the gulls fly high
Grey and white wings and a piercing cry

Westward the ships sail over the lee
Succor and mercy and might they plea
From the Black Terror be free
& Never return from the sea

Over Forlindon the gulls fly low
Grey and white wings right swiftly will go

One son of the star ruled the Isle of Gift
The other yet dwells where water falls swift
Far from where foam on waves drift
And ever the singing sands shift

Ever from Mithlond the gulls fly far
Grey and white wings reach for the star

Ghosts of Stone

Written for the Silmarillion Writer's Guild January 2021 Resolutions challenge:
Day 10: Bonus prompts are images for instadrabbling from the Naturalist's Guide to Middle-earth challenge, Sept 2020. Image 11, The Old Quay

Day 29: January 29th's bonus prompt comes from the True Leader challenge:
“Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.” ~ Shirley Chisholm

With many thanks to the SWG Discord denizens for enthusiasm and encouragement.

On AO3

Read Ghosts of Stone

Old the ghosts of built things stand,
Quays and cities, towers grand
Where rivers flowed o'er wind swept land
Now lost and gone, sunk 'neath the sand.

Once they served to watch and ward
To shelter lives from flame and sword
Let lovers dance upon the sward
Now lost and gone, unseen, unmoored

Under heaven's dome they stood
Stone and iron, glass and wood
Singing, laughing as they could
Now lost and gone, both fell and good

Stone laments the grass grown room
Silent streets in twilight gloom
Once a refuge, defying doom
Now lost and gone: an empty tomb

Into the West

Written for the Silmarillion Writer's Guild January 2021 Resolutions challenge:
Day 16, 21, 26, 31: Bonus Postcards for the November-December Postcards from Middle Earth.
My postcard from the challenge proper.

A drabble-poem incorporating all the postcard texts for the SWG New Year's Resolution bonus prompts, except the first (which got its very own drabble-set) and including the text from the postcard I got for the challenge proper.

With many thanks to the SWG Discord denizens for enthusiasm and encouragement.

On AO3

Read Into the West

Not even a whisper, as the light subsides
Moon reflected on the sea - a path
Even our paddles in the water, our coracles
Cannot that way unmake: the sky receives us
Like snowflakes falling up: crystal cold and joyous,
Is this the Straight Road? Way unthought,
The plan enacted for travel from travail?
Briefly the breeze stirs, ruffling the wave-road
And from afar, I see the air, the mountains reaching
Up and up and up, where air and aether mix,
Stars and sparks and fireflies alight on bright swift streams
And this, this is what it is, to be happy.