Coming Down
Obon Rain
for the ones who still wait
The rain begins slowly—
drumming
on stone markers.
I light a stick of incense.
It curls
like something trying to stay.
Even the cicadas
have fallen quiet.
A child’s sandal
drifts
down the flooded path.
Ryan Stone
Kintsugi Morning
The bowl is still cracked,
but gold glints
in early light.
Steam from the tea
rises—
a soft unravelling.
Outside, the plum tree
shakes off
a single blossom.
You are nowhere,
and still
I pour two cups.
Ryan Stone
She Named the Stars Out Loud
We pulled off somewhere
past the edge of signal,
dust curling like smoke
behind the tyres.
She climbed the bonnet barefoot,
leaned back with a bottle of water
and a grin
like she’d stolen it from a god.
Said she used to be
an astrologer.
Said Orion was her first crush
and she still wrote him letters
when it rained.
I told her I didn’t believe in fate.
She said,
“Good.
The sky doesn’t care
what you believe.”
She pointed—
Scorpius.
Crux.
Something I can’t pronounce
but still dream about.
I kissed her
somewhere between Mars and regret.
She tasted like dust
and the end of something beautiful.
By morning,
the sky was empty
and so was the seat beside me.
I still look up
hoping to find
whatever she saw in the dark.
Ryan Stone
This poem appears in my latest collection:
Shady Ladies and Bourbon Highways
Available for kindle from Amazon Australia here or Amazon US here.
Daisy
It had no right
to be growing there—
in the cracked seam
between the house and the path,
where runoff pooled
and the dog pissed
and nothing green should last.
But there it was.
One daisy.
Tilting toward the heat
like it believed
in something.
Not blooming
exactly,
just holding on,
a yellow eye
in a world
that never looked back.
I could’ve crushed it
on the way to the bin.
I could’ve stepped wide
and not noticed.
But I stood there,
foot half-raised,
thinking of all the small things
we kill
because we don’t
call them beautiful
in time.
Ryan Stone
After the Rain
some days
getting up is enough.
feet on cold tiles,
kettle humming,
a clean shirt pulled over last night’s ache.
you don’t have to shine.
not today.
just breathe.
just be.
let the storm pass without explanation.
let the sky rinse itself clean.
there’s no deadline
for feeling okay,
only weather,
moving through.
and when it does,
when the clouds crack open
and a thread of light finds your skin,
stand in it.
face to the sky.
you made it through the rain.
that’s what matters.
that’s the kind of strength
the world forgets to clap for.
but I see it.
I’m clapping.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 