Stone and Signal - Episode 3: The Fire and the Frost
Welcome back to Stone and Signal. If you haven't heard the first episode yet you can find information on Episdoe 1 here and Episode 2 here.
The Podcast LinksThe Transcript What Doesn’t Scale
Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-bo...We’ve built a culture obsessed with scale.
If something can’t be made faster, bigger, more efficient, it’s dismissed as quaint—or worse, irrelevant. We praise the viral, the exponential, the optimized. We’re told to build audiences, to batch content, to repurpose our thoughts into ever more digestible forms. Nothing is allowed to stay small. Nothing is allowed to simply be.
But there’s a quiet power in what refuses to scale.
A handwritten letter.
A meal cooked slowly for one person.
A moment of real attention, offered without a motive.
A poem read aloud to no one but yourself.
These are not acts of productivity.
They are acts of presence.
And presence does not scale.
That’s uncomfortable to say, especially in a time when so much of our worth is measured in metrics. Even art has been pulled into the gravitational field of content. The expectation is not just to create, but to convert: followers to buyers, impressions to engagement, every quiet thing into something quantifiable.
But not everything we make is meant to move at the speed of data.
There are forms of expression that resist conversion. That can’t be packaged, scheduled, or split into ten social media posts. These are often the truest things we have to offer. And they ask something we’re not often asked to give: our time. Our attention. Our willingness to linger in the unmarketable.
The best art doesn’t want to convince you.
It wants to change you.
And real change takes time.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about lately—not just as a writer, but as a human being living in a world that increasingly feels allergic to stillness. I don’t have a strategy to offer. This isn’t a think piece with a tidy solution. It’s a note from the margins, written in defense of the unscalable.
I want to keep making things that don’t fit into a funnel. That won’t go viral. That refuse to compete with the noise. Not because they’re better—but because they’re necessary.
We need art that lingers.
We need language that asks us to slow down.
We need practices that make us human again.
Not everything should scale.
And that’s not a flaw.
It’s a choice.
Welcome back to Stone and Signal.
I’m Lawrence Nault.
Thisepisode is different.
It’s slower. Softer.
A breath drawn in—and held.
We’vewandered, you and I, through stories of collapse and resilience...
Through old myths, forgotten futures, and the strange shapes of survival.
But today, I want to set those stories down for a while.
To step aside from narrative and dwell in the language beneath language.
Therhythm behind the words.
The space between the phrases.
The quiet pulse that remains when everything else is stripped away.
Poetry.
Thereare moments when the world begins to outpace us—
When the noise, the speed, the pressure of it all makes it hard to think, letalone speak.
Lately, those moments seem to come more often.
Boostedby machines that accelerate our exhaustion.
By timelines that never sleep.
By algorithms that shout louder with each scroll, until silence itself feelslike an act of rebellion.
It’slike being caught in a breath—trapped in that moment before exhale—
the air gone thin, the noise thick around you.
Butpoetry doesn’t ask for volume.
It asks for stillness.
It doesn’t demand your attention—it invites it.
And in that invitation, there’s a kind of sanctuary.
Today,I’ll share a handful of my poems.
Some come from my collection Fragments of Frost and Fire.
Others are new—written in the small hours,
in frost-hung silence, or beside the slow ember-glow of grief.
They’refragments, really—of memory, of wonder, of resistance.
A handful of signals I’ve sent out over the years,
hoping they might land in someone else’s quiet.
Andtogether, I hope they form a kind of weather.
A climate of attention.
A brief clearing in the noise.
A signal, cast quietly into the world—
meant not to be decoded, but simply received.
Poetryhas always felt elemental to me.
Not just in theme, but in nature.
It doesn’t announce itself with answers.
It doesn’t try to win an argument.
It just… is.
Aflicker.
A breath.
A signal from something older than language.
It’snot a performance.
It’s not meant to convince.
It’s meant to resonate.
To strike a chord inside you that you didn’t know was waiting to be struck.
Sometimesit comes like smoke—
rising from something smoldering far beneath the surface.
A memory.
A question.
A grief not yet named.
Othertimes, it comes like cold—
sharp, bracing,
a sudden clarity that startles you awake and shows you the frost etching yourwindow was trying to speak all along.
Thereare poems I wrote years ago that still feel like strangers.
They show up in old notebooks or tucked into margins—
and I don’t recognize the voice, but something in the shape of them still ringstrue.
Andthen there are those I barely remember writing—
scribbled in the margins of exhaustion or awe—
but they carry truths I didn’t know I needed until I heard them read aloud,years later.
Poetryhas music to it,
but it’s not always a melody you can hum.
It’s a kind of private soundtrack—
and you, the listener,
are the only one who can hear it clearly.
The rhythm will be different for each of us.
The silence will land in different places.
Becausepoetry, to be understood,
must be experienced.
Not just heard.
And certainly not explained.
Yourmind has to wander through it—
to climb the hills,
to sit still in the fog,
to follow the curve of its strange shoreline.
Sometimesa single line will open something inside you—
a door, a memory, a scar.
And sometimes, nothing will happen.
Not right away.
But the words will stay with you.
Waiting.
Sifting through the dust for a place to root.
SoI invite you to listen.
Not just to the words,
but to the spaces between them.
Letthem breathe.
Let them echo.
Let them be what they are.
Asignal.
A fire.
A frost.
And something that endures in the quiet.
Thedeeper I sink into the life of a hermit, a recluse, a writer—the more I findmyself engaging with the world through ideas, not through presence. These ideasdon’t always arrive fully formed—they come in fragments, in twilight hours, indreams I half-remember. These fragments arrive when the world goes quiet.Sometimes they become stories. Sometimes they become poems.
Worlds BetweenWorldsI’ve lived mylife,
Many lives,
In thetwilight.
Not that space
Between day andnight,
When the sunescapes
Over thehorizon,
And the moonshuffles
To its nightlyobservation post—
But the spacebetween my eyelids,
Blocking outthe day,
Preparing totransition me from one world to the next—
From the worldof the living,
To the world ofthe subconscious.
The twilight isthe world that exists
Between those.
It is thatworld
In which I haveso many lives.
A rancher, arecluse,
A holy man, ahermit,
A lover, afighter,
A man of power,a man of means,
An immortal, alost soul.
That world wasreal—
Where I livedlifetimes in minutes,
And minutes inhours.
As a rancher,the foothills were my playground,
The snow-peakedmountains my backdrop,
To the mightyhorses—
The shires thatroamed my range,
Worked my land,
And graced mewith their presence.
Massivecreatures,
With anunderstanding of me
I strived togain of them.
As a recluseand a hermit,
The mountainsand forests
Were the walls
That protectedme from the world,
And the worldfrom me.
Though mywords,
Scrawled withpen on paper,
In tomes ofthoughts and stories,
Unbound to myappearance or presentation,
Reached theworld—
Inciting change
In the world,
And in people.
As an immortal,I never aged,
And lived morelives than I can dream.
Some hiding inneed of respite,
Some among themortals,
Some justwishing death could find me.
As a lover, Iloved—
Many,
Often,
Emotionally,
Physically.
That lovetaking many forms,
Described byPlato and Aristotle,
In Buddhistteachings, the Bhakti tradition, and Sufi poetry,
In the KamaSutra, The Perfumed Garden, Ishimpo, and The Golden Lotus.
But always,
In the end,
Alone.
I spoke withlife from other worlds—
Creatures thatset me here
To observe melike a rat in a maze,
To use me as atool for change,
To empower me
As a weapon ofmass destruction,
And massdevelopment.
Their constantchatter ringing in my ears during day,
Translated inconversation
In thattwilight.
I stopped wars,
And savedlives—
But I took sometoo.
I lived inwealth and poverty,
Freedom andconfinement,
Giving andbegging—
With a roofover my head,
And just thesky as my roof.
But always,
In all lives,
Alone.
Even with andamong others—
Alone.
That twilight,
The worldsbetween the worlds,
Is my reality,
For a brieftime,
Until sleeppulls me away
Into the realmof dreams and nightmares—
Then spits meout
Into thereality I cannot change,
But that forceschanges in me,
As I long forthe worlds of my twilight again.
There’sa quiet war each of us wages—one that doesn’t make headlines, doesn’t askpermission, and never stops advancing. It’s the war between life and time. Wefight it not with weapons, but with breath, memory, love, and the stubborn willto keep going—despite the creaks in our bones or the silver in our hair.
Thispoem is about that battle. It’s about facing the slow siege of aging withcourage, with humor, and with an unshakable sense of self. I wrote it not as alament, but as a rallying cry—a kind of whispered oath to the part of us thatrefuses to surrender.
It’scalled
The Unending War: Life vs. TimeI stand at dawn upon this weathered ridge, My bannerraised against the coming tide, Time's armies gather in the distant mist, As I,Life's champion, prepare to ride.
They say no mortal ever wins this war, Yet here Istand, defiant to the last, My armor gleams with hope still unfulfilled, Mysword still sharp despite the battles past.
Time sends its scouts—a silver strand of hair, Adeeper line etched near my watchful eye. "Small victories," I scoff,and raise my helm, Though somewhere deep, I recognize the lie.
The skirmishes cut deeper through the years, A kneethat aches before the coming rain, The memory that flickers, dims, and fades,Quick breaths where once was stamina unfeigned.
Time fights with patience, never charging straight,It lays its quiet siege around my walls. The mirror shows the ground that Ihave lost, Each morning's muster, fewer soldiers call.
My joints now crack like armor poorly oiled, Mybones protest at tasks once lightly done. "I yield no quarter," stillI boldly claim, While Time just smiles—the long game has begun.
By night I fortify with stubborn dreams, By day Icounterattack with fierce delight. I celebrate each moment as it comes, Eachbreath a victory in this endless fight.
The hills I climbed with ease in bygone days Nowseem like mountains, steep and never-ending, My body—once my ally—now betraysWith limits, weaknesses, and slower mending.
"Is this defeat?" I whisper to the dark,No voice replies—just breath and memory. But something stirs. The self I usedto be, Still answers: “Time can wound, but not erase.”
To beauty, love, to wisdom dearly earned, The spoilsof battle Time cannot reclaim. What matters most lies deep beyond its reach—The essence of your spirit and your name."
So on we fight, Time's armies and my soul, A war ofattrition playing out each day. It claims its victories in flesh and bone, Ingraying temples, strength that slips away.
But in this uneven contest, strange to tell, I finda truth that glimmers like a blade: Though Time will win the final reckoning,'Tis how we fight that makes us unafraid.
For Time can count its trophies all it wants— Thesuppleness of youth, the carefree stride— Yet cannot touch the fire that burnswithin, The heart's defiance, stubborn, dignified.
So let Time come with all its silent force, I standunbowed, though battle-scarred and worn. Each day I rise to face its vastarray, Each night I rest, prepared for war at dawn.
And in the end, when Time makes final claim, Whenbreath departs and silence claims its due, Remember this—I fought with all Ihad, And lived each moment fierce, and burning true.
Not all poems need to be solemn.
This one surprised me—like finding wildflowers growing in a ruin.
Sometimes we resist despair by laughing. Or by remembering beauty.
Giants aren't supposed to dance but nobody told thisto Herc.
massive shire horse, eighteen hands high
hooves like dinner plates
mane flowing like a midnight waterfall
built for plowing fields and pulling carts
but secretly dreaming of ballet
watch him now, dew still on the grass
his enormousbody suddenly weightless
defying physics with glee
“Look at me!” he seems to say—
as he prances sideways
neck arched
tail flaggedhigh
like a victory banner
sheer delightin all that horseflesh
the way his eyes bug out when he spots a butterfly
theground-shaking buck and twist at the sight of a plastic bag
(ridiculous on a beast so grand)
his whinny like rusty gates opening into sunshine
he gallops circles 'round his field
each lapfaster than the last
legs liketree trunks somehow suddenly graceful as gazelles
only to stop,snort, paw the earth
then collapsein a rolling frenzy
fourdinner-plate hooves waving skyward
coating hisnoble bulk in pasture confetti
oh to love your body that completely!
the farm dog barks
the chickensscatter
the farmer'schildren double over in helpless giggles
as Herc
the gentle giant
celebrates the miracle of being alive
in his paddock cathedral he preaches joy withoutwords
converts everyone to laughter
teaches us the ridiculous wisdom of half-toncreatures
who forget they're supposed to be dignified
thundering happiness that rattles the barn walls
and shakesloose whatever seriousness
we foolishly cling to
Welive in a world that’s increasingly hostile to slowness.
Everything is optimized. Quantified. Filtered for speed and scale.
Ourdays are measured in clicks and scrolls,
our attention sliced thin by algorithms designed not to nourish, but toconsume.
Poetryclashes with this.
It resists the metrics.
It refuses to be flattened into content or converted into data.
Poetrylingers.
It’s inconvenient.
It sits with us in the aftermath—after the feed goes dark,
after the meeting ends,
after the noise dies down.
Itsays: Here. Feel this.
Even if you don’t understand it.
Even if it hurts.
Poetrydoesn't chase virality.
It doesn't trend.
But it remains.
Like a breath held in the chest.
Like the echo of something you didn’t know you needed to hear.
Andin a world obsessed with momentum,
that stillness?
That presence?
Is an act of quiet defiance.
Thankyou for listening today. For making space for stillness.
For trusting the quiet to mean something.
Ifany of these poems spoke to you, I hope you’ll carry them for a while. Let themsettle. Let them echo.
Youcan find more of my poetry in Fragments of Frost and Fire,on my blog, or tucked between the lines of my stories.
And if you'd like to support this work, my books are available wherever booksare sold. Every purchase helps keep this podcast—and this quiet space—alive.
Untilnext time: May your signal find the stones that remember.
