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.
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What Doesn’t Scale
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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.
Stone and Signal – Episode 3: The Fire and the Frost
Welcome back to Stone and Signal.
I’m Lawrence Nault.
This
episode is different.
It’s slower. Softer.
A breath drawn in—and held.
We’ve
wandered, 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.
The
rhythm behind the words.
The space between the phrases.
The quiet pulse that remains when everything else is stripped away.
Poetry.
There
are moments when the world begins to outpace us—
When the noise, the speed, the pressure of it all makes it hard to think, let
alone speak.
Lately, those moments seem to come more often.
Boosted
by machines that accelerate our exhaustion.
By timelines that never sleep.
By algorithms that shout louder with each scroll, until silence itself feels
like an act of rebellion.
It’s
like being caught in a breath—trapped in that moment before exhale—
the air gone thin, the noise thick around you.
But
poetry 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’re
fragments, 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.
And
together, 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.
Poetry
has 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.
A
flicker.
A breath.
A signal from something older than language.
It’s
not 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.
Sometimes
it comes like smoke—
rising from something smoldering far beneath the surface.
A memory.
A question.
A grief not yet named.
Other
times, it comes like cold—
sharp, bracing,
a sudden clarity that startles you awake and shows you the frost etching your
window was trying to speak all along.
There
are 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 rings
true.
And
then 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.
Poetry
has 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.
Because
poetry, to be understood,
must be experienced.
Not just heard.
And certainly not explained.
Your
mind has to wander through it—
to climb the hills,
to sit still in the fog,
to follow the curve of its strange shoreline.
Sometimes
a 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.
So
I invite you to listen.
Not just to the words,
but to the spaces between them.
Let
them breathe.
Let them echo.
Let them be what they are.
A
signal.
A fire.
A frost.
And something that endures in the quiet.
The
deeper I sink into the life of a hermit, a recluse, a writer—the more I find
myself engaging with the world through ideas, not through presence. These ideas
don’t always arrive fully formed—they come in fragments, in twilight hours, in
dreams I half-remember. These fragments arrive when the world goes quiet.
Sometimes they become stories. Sometimes they become poems.
Worlds Between Worlds
I’ve lived my
life,
Many lives,
In the
twilight.
Not that space
Between day and
night,
When the sun
escapes
Over the
horizon,
And the moon
shuffles
To its nightly
observation post—
But the space
between my eyelids,
Blocking out
the day,
Preparing to
transition me from one world to the next—
From the world
of the living,
To the world of
the subconscious.
The twilight is
the world that exists
Between those.
It is that
world
In which I have
so many lives.
A rancher, a
recluse,
A holy man, a
hermit,
A lover, a
fighter,
A man of power,
a man of means,
An immortal, a
lost soul.
That world was
real—
Where I lived
lifetimes in minutes,
And minutes in
hours.
As a rancher,
the foothills were my playground,
The snow-peaked
mountains my backdrop,
To the mighty
horses—
The shires that
roamed my range,
Worked my land,
And graced me
with their presence.
Massive
creatures,
With an
understanding of me
I strived to
gain of them.
As a recluse
and a hermit,
The mountains
and forests
Were the walls
That protected
me from the world,
And the world
from me.
Though my
words,
Scrawled with
pen on paper,
In tomes of
thoughts and stories,
Unbound to my
appearance or presentation,
Reached the
world—
Inciting change
In the world,
And in people.
As an immortal,
I never aged,
And lived more
lives than I can dream.
Some hiding in
need of respite,
Some among the
mortals,
Some just
wishing death could find me.
As a lover, I
loved—
Many,
Often,
Emotionally,
Physically.
That love
taking many forms,
Described by
Plato and Aristotle,
In Buddhist
teachings, the Bhakti tradition, and Sufi poetry,
In the Kama
Sutra, The Perfumed Garden, Ishimpo, and The Golden Lotus.
But always,
In the end,
Alone.
I spoke with
life from other worlds—
Creatures that
set me here
To observe me
like a rat in a maze,
To use me as a
tool for change,
To empower me
As a weapon of
mass destruction,
And mass
development.
Their constant
chatter ringing in my ears during day,
Translated in
conversation
In that
twilight.
I stopped wars,
And saved
lives—
But I took some
too.
I lived in
wealth and poverty,
Freedom and
confinement,
Giving and
begging—
With a roof
over my head,
And just the
sky as my roof.
But always,
In all lives,
Alone.
Even with and
among others—
Alone.
That twilight,
The worlds
between the worlds,
Is my reality,
For a brief
time,
Until sleep
pulls me away
Into the realm
of dreams and nightmares—
Then spits me
out
Into the
reality I cannot change,
But that forces
changes in me,
As I long for
the worlds of my twilight again.
There’s
a quiet war each of us wages—one that doesn’t make headlines, doesn’t ask
permission, and never stops advancing. It’s the war between life and time. We
fight it not with weapons, but with breath, memory, love, and the stubborn will
to keep going—despite the creaks in our bones or the silver in our hair.
This
poem is about that battle. It’s about facing the slow siege of aging with
courage, with humor, and with an unshakable sense of self. I wrote it not as a
lament, but as a rallying cry—a kind of whispered oath to the part of us that
refuses to surrender.
It’s called
The Unending War:
Life vs. Time
I stand at dawn upon this weathered ridge, My banner
raised 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 I
stand, defiant to the last, My armor gleams with hope still unfulfilled, My
sword still sharp despite the battles past.
Time sends its scouts—a silver strand of hair, A
deeper 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 knee
that 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 I
have lost, Each morning's muster, fewer soldiers call.
My joints now crack like armor poorly oiled, My
bones protest at tasks once lightly done. "I yield no quarter," still
I boldly claim, While Time just smiles—the long game has begun.
By night I fortify with stubborn dreams, By day I
counterattack with fierce delight. I celebrate each moment as it comes, Each
breath a victory in this endless fight.
The hills I climbed with ease in bygone days Now
seem like mountains, steep and never-ending, My body—once my ally—now betrays
With 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 used
to be, Still answers: “Time can wound, but not erase.”
To beauty, love, to wisdom dearly earned, The spoils
of 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 of
attrition playing out each day. It claims its victories in flesh and bone, In
graying temples, strength that slips away.
But in this uneven contest, strange to tell, I find
a 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— The
suppleness of youth, the carefree stride— Yet cannot touch the fire that burns
within, The heart's defiance, stubborn, dignified.
So let Time come with all its silent force, I stand
unbowed, though battle-scarred and worn. Each day I rise to face its vast
array, Each night I rest, prepared for war at dawn.
And in the end, when Time makes final claim, When
breath departs and silence claims its due, Remember this—I fought with all I
had, 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.
Herc
Giants aren't supposed to dance but nobody told this
to 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 enormous
body suddenly weightless
defying physics with glee
“Look at me!” he seems to say—
as he prances sideways
neck arched
tail flagged
high
like a victory banner
sheer delight
in all that horseflesh
the way his eyes bug out when he spots a butterfly
the
ground-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 lap
faster than the last
legs like
tree trunks somehow suddenly graceful as gazelles
only to stop,
snort, paw the earth
then collapse
in a rolling frenzy
four
dinner-plate hooves waving skyward
coating his
noble bulk in pasture confetti
oh to love your body that completely!
the farm dog barks
the chickens
scatter
the farmer's
children double over in helpless giggles
as Herc
the gentle giant
celebrates the miracle of being alive
in his paddock cathedral he preaches joy without
words
converts everyone to laughter
teaches us the ridiculous wisdom of half-ton
creatures
who forget they're supposed to be dignified
thundering happiness that rattles the barn walls
and shakes
loose whatever seriousness
we foolishly cling to
We
live in a world that’s increasingly hostile to slowness.
Everything is optimized. Quantified. Filtered for speed and scale.
Our
days are measured in clicks and scrolls,
our attention sliced thin by algorithms designed not to nourish, but to
consume.
Poetry
clashes with this.
It resists the metrics.
It refuses to be flattened into content or converted into data.
Poetry
lingers.
It’s inconvenient.
It sits with us in the aftermath—after the feed goes dark,
after the meeting ends,
after the noise dies down.
It
says: Here. Feel this.
Even if you don’t understand it.
Even if it hurts.
Poetry
doesn'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.
And
in a world obsessed with momentum,
that stillness?
That presence?
Is an act of quiet defiance.
Thank
you for listening today. For making space for stillness.
For trusting the quiet to mean something.
If
any of these poems spoke to you, I hope you’ll carry them for a while. Let them
settle. Let them echo.
You
can 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 books
are sold. Every purchase helps keep this podcast—and this quiet space—alive.
Until
next time: May your signal find the stones that remember.
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