This day is when I mark a new year. Not by the calendar, but by the wheeling of the sun.

Wind sweeps away summer, brings the reckoning, brings the great death.

A little over three weeks ago, one of our cats died. He wasn’t “my” cat — more like a stepson — but there was pain. He was in pain. Now he’s not in pain. This was my first time participating in that kind of stewardship. In this age, the price for being a human is a steward’s duties.

I miss that cat very much. This is the annual day of mourning for what is lost. I make space in my heart today to mourn him again and again and again.

Armes Prydein has surpassed twelve chapters and 50,000 words. I’m not pausing the work; I cannot pause it, it’s entered the realm of compulsion. But I’m proud of having managed this in the cycle of only two moons, and the time feels right to start something new in the background.

Starting today, I will write poetry again. I will write one poem every day for the next 365 days. I won’t publish every one that I write, but if I do publish anything, it will go here.

It’s time to watch the withering. It’s time to gather apples. It’s time to weep, and to kiss the dark.

Llywelyn