Author: liliessparrowsandgrass

Where Branches Are Bare

Where Branches Are Bare

Where branches are bare
snow comes down
and where ruby leaves have left
stars alight
upon alabaster boughs.

D. G. Vachal ©2026

Image by Manuel H. @pixabay

Among the Jasmine Blossoms

Among the Jasmine Blossoms

a key opens
my father’s filing cabinet
locked
for so long —

the second drawer
overflows with my letters:
stamped envelopes
squiggly pen strokes
from when I was a child,
a teenager,
a young woman,
a mother —

every letter quietly kept
as a jewel
when they came to him
from far away —

now that I am near
I hear his laughter
while I walk in the garden
among the jasmine blossoms.

D. G. Vachal ©2026

Image Attribution: Mokkie, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Surprised by Light

Surprised by Light

surprised by light,
it burrows through drape fibers,
casts silver threads upon my pillow,
brushes my eyelids
with soft white feathers —

surprised by daybreak,
the pink and amber sky,
the robin’s first song,
rejoicing —

surprised
by gladness.

D. G. Vachal © 2025

Image by Susanne Nilsson, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Beach House

Beach House

twilight at low tide:
the seabed like a wide flat road
stretches for a mile;
across the distance
the volcano stands,
majestic
against the changing sky —

I look back:
the beach house my father built
awaits,
from the balcony, gas lamps flicker,
orange flames glow
in lavender light —

I walk with hermit crabs
upon rocks and sand,
gather sea urchins
in my willow basket,
my little feet soaked
in shallow waters

this moment I am

with the sea as the tide turns,
the volcano shrouded in twilight,
the beach house
silent,
aglow.

D. G. Vachal ©2025

Image by Tim Hill @pixabay

The Walk Back Alone

The Walk Back Alone

this poem completes the diptych, “A Stranger at Sunset” being the first panel …

the streetlamp stands tall,
a lighthouse guiding my footsteps back —
heartbeats pound my chest:
a rhythmic sound like horse-hooves,
from the tall grasses crickets chirp
out of tempo,
tonight I am bewildered
by this strange evening music —

at the dormitory
I pace the yellow tiled floor,
from a distance
young ladies sit at study tables
with their tea and textbooks —

the night deepens,
I tremble like a leaf in the wind,
gravity forsakes me,
I walk with the stars
light years away,
I am lost in a place
no map can locate —

after restless sleep
another day blossoms in the sky:
a seed within me
stirs from its slumber
awakened
by the stranger at sunset.

D. G. Vachal © 2025

Image by J. Plenio @pixabay