NeuroDivine

Today I found myself writing two small Common Metre poems—companions to one another.

Andrew was in Dublin for a course, and the house felt different in his absence. Not lonely exactly. Just altered. Softer around the edges. The Sunday light lay still. The cats took up their posts. The kettle hummed. Pancakes became a small, almost liturgical act of steadiness.

There is something very neurodivergent about noticing the way a house changes when one person is missing. The air shifts. The rhythm alters. Even sound behaves differently. Silence becomes textured.

So the first poem simply sat inside that quiet. It didn’t dramatise it. It didn’t resist it. It let the stillness be kind.

But trains move. Evenings fall. And return has its own music.

The second poem came as the rhythm changed again—laughter at the door, Diet Coke poured without ceremony, two cats slightly overstimulated with joy, and the ordinary sacrament of watching television together. The house breathed differently. It felt complete in a new way.

What struck me was how both states held grace.

The solitary afternoon was not deficient.

The shared evening was not chaotic.

Both were gifts.

Sometimes stability—stabilitas—is not about unchanging conditions, but about staying present to whatever the hour brings: quiet rooms or warm return.

Today’s poems felt like that.

Just the soft theology of a house learning to breathe in and out.

Quiet house

The Sunday light lies soft and still,
The rooms breathe gentle air;
With Andrew gone to Dublin’s streets,
A quiet settles here.

The cats curl close in silent grace,
Their purrs a steady drum;
And in this calm, the heart can rest,
Content with all that’s come.

The kettle hums its little tune,
A comfort in the still;
I wander through the afternoon
At my own easy will.

The pancakes warm the waiting plate,
A small, kind Sabbath feast;
The cats keep watch with patient eyes,
Their purring never ceased.

And though the Dublin miles are long,
His absence felt in air,
The house holds peace enough to last
Until he’s back from there.

The train runs west through fading light,
Its rhythm drawing near;
He’s on his way along the rails,
And home grows warm and clear.

Andrew’s return

The quiet rooms begin to glow,
His laughter stirs the air;
And Diet Coke in easy streams
Sings welcome everywhere.

The hush of town at evening’s fall,
Two happy cats in view;
The house breathes out its joy again,
Its heart restored with two.

The settled walls remember him,
Their stillness breaks in glee;
And now the night grows gentle‑bright—
It’s time to watch TV.