1 Year of Mantlemoor: A Psalm for Summer’s End

This completely crept up on me, but it’s very suddenly now been one year since I started Mantlemoor. Time really does fly. One year ago, H was an anxious graduate who had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. Now, H is an anxious graduate who has no idea what she wants to do with her life, also doing the best she can to not have a complete meltdown about the new school year starting tomorrow. I truly have come a long way.

In my first post, A Prologue, I wrote that I wanted to have somewhere to write about the things I make and enjoy, and I think I’ve done my best to do just that. I’ve written about books, written about my writing, and written about writing about books, which just about covers everything. I haven’t always been the best at keeping my countless projects going, but I’m definitely getting better. Mantlemoor and Nerai, the fantasy world where most of my fiction is set, are both proof of that. I love having things to tend to — houseplants, sketchbooks, novels, worlds — and having a blog has been such a wonderful outlet for a different set of creative muscles. I’m excited for the things to come.

To celebrate, I thought I’d be brave and post a poem I wrote a few days ago, during the final days of our summer trip. Enjoy!

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a psalm for summer’s end

beneath the orchard’s slothful shade

— the branches bright as silver spears

laid heavy with their amber spheres —

a little lizard’s skitters fade,

lost beneath the wheezing trees

that breathe the dry and fervent breeze.

(a glimpse of bliss this garden seems,

the stuff of frigid winter dreams)

but ants spin in the teal-tile pool

where wasp and fly and bug-like things

upon the dappled surface cling,

their ripples straining to unspool

that crystal clearness, mirrored by

a perfect hue of powdered sky.

(the feathered thumbs of pampas sigh

in mourning of each twisting fly)

and yet those specks are mimicry,

each jot of black upon the surface

grant an accidental service

to mirror distant majesty:

a flock of swallows lilting fair

upon the blooms of summer air.

(their stomachs flash with glossy cream,

like foaming beads of crystal streams)

in whirring joy the songbirds swing —

their clusters tossed about the blue

like scattered seed in field of view —

each fork of distant, sun-lit wing

a dart of shadow, barely seen,

upon the water’s dappled sheen.

(a summer canvas to behold:

of cobalt waters rimmed with gold)

yes, what a site of reverie,

where wailing growls of tarmac sheen

and blink and glare of frosty screen

are nothing more than memory,

and here: naught but the gentle churn

of chalky road and murmured fern.

(a summer’s ending, bittersweet —

this place where grief and glory meet)

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To end, as I ended my first entry here, here’s the current state of affairs. I read nine books over the summer break, and next on my list is Words of Radiance, the second book in The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (I finished The Way of Kings while I was away, and was absolutely livid that I didn’t think to bring the next). I’m still listening to The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One, but my current Dungeons & Dragons fixation is Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, a four-episode epic which is slowly tearing my heart to shreds. And, finally, I just finished re-reading The Lord of the Ringsfor the first time since I was thirteen, which I’d just started before that first post. All in all, I’m very emotional. Maybe I’ll write about it.

Here’s to another year, and fare well, wherever you fare!

— H