Granules in the Hourglass
Syllables cascade through time,
granules in an hourglass,
to recombine, cohere into
a word, a phrase, poetic line.
Language reinvents itself,
coruscates in signs on walls;
falls silent, mute as clay and stone
on tablets that enshrine its form.
We think we make our language sing:
our mother tongue gave us the song;
we, too, are particles of time,
free-falling; crucibles of mind.
Jena Woodhouse‘s unpublished poetry collection, Tidings from the Pelagos: a Polyphony was shortlisted in the Greek-based Eyelands International Book Awards 2024. Her forthcoming collection is The Singing Ship: a Study in Resistances, to be published by Calanthe Press, November 2025. She lived and worked for a decade in Greece, and has spent time in many other countries of Eastern and Western Europe.