Category: Poetry

In the Shade of the Tree Ferns

No path here.
Just damp earth,
moss on stone,
and the slow, deliberate hush
of growing things.

Tree ferns arc overhead,
fronds wide as arms,
filtering light
into something sacred.

I brought my sons here,
when their legs were small
and full of mud.
They squatted in the black soil,
drew patterns with sticks,
found joy
in a single wriggling earthworm.

The ferns, the filtered light—
none of it mattered.
Only dirt,
and the way it stuck
to their knees,
their laughter,
my heart.

Now I pass alone.
The moss is thicker.
Their prints long gone.
But I see them—
the shape they made
in that moment,
still held
in the hush beneath the fronds.

And I smile,
because some things—
mud,
love,
the wonder of being their dad—
cling forever.

Ryan Stone

This one is from my new poetry collection – Love, and Other Ordinary Miracles – soon to be released on Amazon.

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Instructions for Holding a Heart

Use both hands,
even if it looks small.
Especially then.

Do not squeeze,
poke,
test its reflexes.
It’s not a trick muscle.

Keep it warm,
but not too close to flame.
It remembers burning.

When it trembles,
don’t panic.
They all do.
Just be still,
and let it find
its own rhythm again.

Do not fill it
with your own silence.
It needs space,
not emptiness.

If it cracks,
and it will,
don’t offer glue.
Sit beside it.
Hold the pieces
without pressing.

And when it shines
for no reason,
on no particular day,
look at it like
you’ve never seen
something so alive.

Because you haven’t.

Ryan Stone

2

Paw Print

Years since—
his bowl gone,
yard grown over,
collar hanging
unused.

This morning,
cleaning the window,
I found it—
one print,
low in the corner,
half lost to light.

It floored me.
Solid.
Sure.
The weight of him
in a single mark.

I stood
cloth in hand,
his breath
suddenly in the room.

Didn’t wipe it.
Didn’t move.

Just watched
as the sun warmed the glass
and brought him
loping back
through the yard
and the years.

Ryan Stone

6

She Carries the Ocean in Her Spine

She never said
what it cost to hold the world.

Just straightened her back
when it sagged,
tightened the thread
when it frayed,
made dinner
even when her hands shook.

Her spine—
a tide chart.
Each vertebra
marked by waves
she never let break.

You wouldn’t know it
to look at her—
how many storms
she swallowed.

How many times
she flooded
and held
anyway.

Some call it strength.
But strength is easy
when it’s loud.

What she has
is deeper.
Saltwater kind.
Old as the moon
and just as faithful.

Ryan Stone

4

The Way They Run to Her

It’s not a question,
just instinct.
A scraped knee,
a bad dream,
the kind of ache
they can’t name yet.

They run to her
like rivers find the sea.
Like they always knew the way.

She doesn’t brace.
Just opens
arms, voice,
that face that says
I’ve got you.

There’s magic in it.
Not the wand-waving kind,
but the kind that knows
which night light to leave on,
how to mend what can’t be seen,
how to be
every kind of strong
without ever raising her voice.

I watch them fold into her,
safe and certain.

And I think,
this is how I learned
what love looks like.

Ryan Stone

2

The Shape My Name Takes in Your Mouth

It’s different
when you say it.

Softer,
like it’s something you found
and didn’t want to break.

No rush.
You let it settle
on your tongue,
curl in the warmth
between breath and meaning.

Sometimes
you barely say it at all—
just hum it
into my shoulder,
or murmur it
to the space between
sleep and waking.

I’ve heard it
shouted,
slurred,
scrawled on forms
and barked in anger.

But from you,
it’s a secret.

Not hidden,
held.

And I think
if I ever forget who I am,
you could say it
and I’d remember.

Ryan Stone

4

The Sound of Men Not Crying

Grief came quiet—
shoved in gloveboxes
with old rego papers
and blunt tools
kept for no reason.

Tears weren’t banned,
just lost
between Dad’s silence
and busted knuckles,
between she’ll be right
and a door
that clicks shut slow.

We didn’t cry
when the dog died,
didn’t cry at the funeral,
didn’t cry
when she walked out.

Just sat there.
Fence posts in floodwater.

We break
in the gut,
in the jaw,
in the muscle it takes
to say I’m fine.

No one taught us
where to put the weight,
only
not to drop it.

Ryan Stone

15

Where the Sky Begins

I was born to dirt roads
and paddocks stitched with fence wire—
a sky too big for pockets,
and stars that never felt far.

Kookaburras laughed me awake,
and magpies taught me
which trees were theirs.
The gum trees never asked for praise,
but earned it,
standing through wind and fire.

There’s grace in the dry of it—
in creeks that vanish,
then come back when no one’s looking.
In red dust that clings
like the past,
but never weighs you down.

I grew up barefoot,
with sun on my back
and the kind of silence
that teaches you
how to listen.

Free not just to run—
but to be.

To speak soft when I wanted,
to shout if I had to,
to believe in things
without needing to name them.

This land has never been tame.
But it has been kind.
And I carry that kindness—
deep in the soles
of the country I walk on.

Ryan Stone

10

White Dwarf, Fading

It was once the centre of things—
a sun that gave names to shadows,
that warmed the bones of planets
and made time possible.

Now it glows
like memory does—
dim,
but refusing to go out.

There is no explosion.
No final flare.
Only the slow retreat
of light
into ash.

It will cool for billions of years.
Long after the Earth forgets itself,
long after we’ve stopped asking,
this ember will linger—
silent,
alone,
perfect in its endurance.

Not everything beautiful needs an audience.
Some things are simply
what the end looks like
when it takes its time.

Ryan Stone

Wonder Box: White Dwarfs
When a star like our Sun dies, it sheds its outer layers and leaves behind a core—a white dwarf. No longer powered by fusion, it shines only with leftover heat. Over trillions of years, it will cool into a black dwarf: cold, dark, and undetectable. None exist yet. The universe isn’t old enough.

This post is taken directly from my latest poetry chapbook – The Sky Well Fell Through – published this week on Amazon

14

The Reason the World Spins

I did not fall.
I turned—
slow as tide,
sure as breath returning
after grief.

You are not my light.
You are the axis—
the unseen pull
that keeps my feet to the earth,
my voice steady,
my hands open.

Before you,
I mistook motion for meaning.
Now, I know the shape of stillness.
I know what it is
to be seen
and not flinch.

You ask nothing but truth.
Give nothing but trust.
And in your presence,
I remember
that love is not a fire,
but the air that bears it.

If I am anything,
it is because you saw me
before I knew
how to speak my name
without shame.

I will not call this forever.
Forever is a fragile word.

But if the stars go out—
if the sky folds in—
I will find you
by feel alone.
By the gravity
you leave in your wake.

And I will know
that this,
of all things,
was real.

Ryan Stone

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