I sit where Penniston Hill breathes wide,
with heather rolling like a violet tide.
The valley hums in a language slow,
older than anything I could know.

A restless bird loops soft through air,
as if it, too, has brought me here —
to witness wind, to feel the ground,
to let the quiet speak its sound.

And in this hush, the poets come,
not loud — but sure, and one by one.

First Poe, with midnight in his coat,
each shadow stitched in every note.
He does not frighten — not to me —
he names the depths I’ve learned to see.

Then Keats arrives on gentler breath,
finding beauty curled in death;
his verses warm, his cadence deep,
like fields the tired are called to sleep.

Halsey follows — pulse and flame —
modern ache with an ancient name.
Her words don’t sit; they move through skin,
a living rhythm felt within.

And Kaur, spare as falling rain,
writes survival without disdain.
Each quiet line, both fierce and small,
reminds me healing lives in all.

Dickinson slips in, white and still,
a barefoot ghost upon the hill.
She speaks in dashes — soft, precise —
of solitude that feels like ice
until you learn it holds a fire
for those who walk a little higher.

Then Duffy — clear, unafraid —
turns the ordinary blade,
showing love in onion rings,
truth inside familiar things.

Around me now they seem to stand,
these keepers of the written hand —
some crowned in life, some late in fame,
yet every heartbeat spells their name.

Their sonnets linger, measured, wise,
constellations for the eyes;
proof that time cannot erase
a soul once poured in ink and grace.

I do not simply read their art —
their language regulates my heart.
Each stanza steadies, line by line,
like breath returning after time.

For poems are not just written words;
they are remembered feelings, heard
by nervous systems seeking shore,
whispering gently, you are more.

So here I sit, the hill my seat,
with earth and sky and poets’ feet.
And as the heather bends below,
I feel their knowing move through bone —

a quiet spark, a steady flame:
through them, I learn myself by name.

—Frost ❄️