eros (a poem)

are subtitles necessary? i don't think i'm good at them, lol

Hello! Hi! I hope you’re well and that 2026 has greeted you with kindness. I had such big intentions for Substack this fall, and made you all a pretty big promise of a weekly post around the time I was wrapping up my MFA. Alas, I had some fairly consuming stuff come up in my life that lasted most of the fall, and - as you may have noticed - that did not happen.

I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to share work on Substack this year. It should be more often than I did this fall. But I hope you hang around either way. :-)

I’m feeling grateful, finding hope and freshness alongside some sorrow in the early days of the new year. My mom, some friends, and I are visiting my sister in British Columbia this weekend and it feels good to be in the PNW for a few days. The weather is cold, gray, and beautiful. We’re on the coast, and I’m loving seeing all the low-lying, tree-covered islands rise between layers of mist.

How is 2026 greeting you? What are you seeing anew? What are you hoping for? I’d love to know, if you’re willing to drop a few lines in the comments.

I’m sharing a poem with you in this post that comes from a totally different place and a totally different time. I had the idea for it on a visit to the Getty a few years ago. I love how late afternoon sunlight light hazes golden over the hills and eucalyptus trees and bottle-green, scrubby brush in Los Angeles. That day the light was particularly lovely, and I happened to be feeling a lot of longing. When some poet friends and I decided to write villanelles together, I wrote the poem that follows. I hope you enjoy it!

May peace and gratitude greet you each day this year, whatever else may come.

---

Eros

At early evening there is a golden haze
that glows within the basin, filling every street
in L.A.'s tangled, fractured, concrete maze.

The air is softer in that hour. The light stays
and stills its hand; lingers for moments in the heat
at early evening. There is a golden haze

for all those moments. Its hand arrays 
the subjects of its touch with solvent light replete
in L.A.'s tangled, fractured, concrete maze.

Till darkness comes the gold light lingers, its rays
touching, reaching, holding everything they meet
at early evening. . . . There is a golden haze

that seems to want to stay until it goes, decays
at once in shadows of hills that arch to greet
the lip of L.A.'s tangled, fractured, concrete maze.

Diffuse, the brightness gentles — lowers — strays — 
Till darkness bids it leave, it blesses every broken street
at evening. There is a golden haze
in L.A.'s tangled, fractured, concrete maze.