This morning came without announcement. The light did not break so much as it gathered—slowly, almost reluctantly—laying itself across the yard in a thin, patient wash. Nothing rushed to meet it. The air held, as if the day itself were still deciding whether to begin.

Yesterday, I cleared what had been left behind. The yard had carried the remnants of winter longer than expected—downed twigs, leaves pressed into corners, the quiet accumulation of what the wind does when no one is watching. I moved through it steadily, not as a task to finish, but as something to tend. There is a kind of mercy in that work—lifting what has fallen, making room without force.

Now the garden beds wait. Ferns have folded in on themselves, their fronds browned and slack, asking to be cut back. The soil is beginning to loosen. Everything suggests that it is time to begin again. But this morning, a gentle rain has settled in—not enough to interrupt the day, only enough to slow it. Enough to say: not yet.

So the work pauses.

And in the pause, something quieter takes its place. Not absence. Not delay. But a different kind of attention—the kind that does not move forward so quickly, the kind that notices what is already underway beneath the surface. It has been a season like this for me in other ways as well.

Over these past months, I have been bringing a manuscript to its final shape—a collection of poems that has asked for less saying, not more. Again and again, it has required the work of clearing, of cutting back, of resisting the urge to explain what might be better left to stand on its own.

In the weeks ahead, I will share more. For now, I simply want to mark that this work is nearing its release: North of Silence will hit the shelves April 1, 2026. Today, I offer one poem from the collection.

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After the Lightning

Some nights,
clarity returns—
startling, sudden—
and I remember
what is true,
what leans toward me in the dark,
what it means to belong
to the holy work of love.

Resolve sharpens—
a blade bright enough
to cut through
my practiced hesitations.

But soon—
a comfort I never earned
slips in like warm wind,
blunting the edge
where fear settles quietly
under the eaves of my thoughts.

Across the lake’s sleep-heavy skin—
lightning splits the far horizon
in the restless cathedral
of high summer air.

Sharp white lifts the sky
like a page
flared under a sudden lamp.

For one breath,
the line of trees stands bare
against this burning day
inside the night.

The water shivers.
Dark folds back in.

Crickets keep on.
Clouds stitch shut their wound.
Night shapes itself again.

When the light withdraws,
let what it showed
remain awake in me.