For those who’ve asked for it, here’s my poem Grateful that I wrote during Hutchmoot: Homebound.


I am grateful. 
Darkness pulls at the edge of my cloak, and
I am grateful to stand 
in the smoke. I am able 
to laugh as I choke 
under scorched skies. 
Milky eyes leave streaks 
through dust tracks on my cheeks, ash 
rains down around me in the streets,
Father, the world is on fire. 
I raise my hands higher 
in the flames,
I am more than dust, and rust, and pain. 
I am grateful

for the strain
of music running through the veins
of earth. For the birth
of new joy in a hurricane
of woes. For those 
who raise their horns 
to split the night asunder. For thorns
shoved into willing brows and the thunder
of hooves on battle plains. For those who bow
under the weight and laugh beside me. 
For the dark that could not hide me,
and the dawn that always rises in the east. 
For the feast to come, 
that’s starting here
with table scraps of grace
and the light of shattered gold on every face.

Every trace of truth, it matters 
and it breaks 
into the battered body 
like a song. I am wrecked, 
and sore, 
and long to rest. 
But more, and more, and more, and best,
I am grateful.


If you’d like to hear the poem in it’s spoken-word form, you can watch it here on the Rabbit Room blog.