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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: Symbolic Poetry

  • A Rose in the Ashes | A Gothic Poem About Memory, Healing & Hope

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some poems feel less like they’re written and more like they’re discovered.

    A Rose in the Ashes came from following an image rather than an outline. One symbol led to another until the poem became a journey through memory itself—through forgotten moments, lingering wounds, recurring dreams, and the quiet realization that healing doesn’t happen by avoiding the past.

    The forest in this poem isn’t meant to be a literal place. It’s the landscape of memory, where some experiences remain vivid while others decay with time. The trees, the tunnel, the moon, the bay, and finally the rose all became landmarks within that emotional terrain.

    The final image—a single rose blooming through ashes—reminded me that even after devastation, beauty doesn’t disappear forever. Sometimes it simply waits beneath the surface until we’re ready to notice it.

    — Rowan Evans

    A single red rose grows through gray ashes beneath a misty forest illuminated by moonlight, symbolizing hope emerging from painful memories.
    Sometimes healing doesn’t appear as a blazing light at the end of the tunnel.

    Sometimes it’s a single rose, quietly blooming where you thought only ashes remained.

    A Rose in the Ashes
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I wander through the mist and fog,
    wondering if I’ve gotten myself lost.
    The trees are thick with sickly green leaves,
    and the air is too thick, it’s hard to breathe.
    Every step feels borrowed,
    like the ground isn’t sure
    it wants to hold me.

    It’s like with every step
    the ground shifts a little to the left,
    until nothing feels right.

    It’s like I’ve walked
    to the end of the tunnel,
    but I didn’t find the light.

    I keep walking, stumbling along—
    the dark swallows me whole
    and then spits me out.
    I hit the ground and roll to a stop
    on the edge of a fifty foot drop.

    That’s when I see it,
    something moving between the trees—

    not a creature,
    but a feeling—

    the sense that I’m being asked
    to keep going
    even when I don’t know why.

    Maybe it’s because
    I didn’t find the light
    at the end of the tunnel,
    not because I failed—
    but because the journey isn’t done.

    The light signifies the end.

    No light means the journey continues,
    so I keep moving through—
    the streets that I walk in sleep,
    the moment I return to my bones,
    or a war with gods to ease the pain.

    Yeah, I followed the footprints
    to the water’s edge,
    I stared across at the coast
    on the other side of silence.

    And even from a distance,
    I was able to trace
    the moon across the heavens,
    before it became suspended over the bay—
    its reflection trembling across the dark water,
    a mirror to the tremor in my chest.

    But I couldn’t stay still for long—
    I had to keep moving on.

    So I ran—

    bolted for the tree line,
    tripped and stumbled in
    and my eyes caught the way the light
    pierced the canopy—

    the light—

    that’s what I’d been chasing
    this whole time,
    not at the end of the tunnel—
    but above my head,
    an idea—

    my eyes drift toward the sky,
    and that’s when I see—

    the leaves on these trees
    are not leaves,
    they are memories—
    some bright and vivid,
    others a sickly shade of green.

    Those are memories forgot,
    memories left to rot.
    But here’s the truth of this plot:

    some memories fade—
    whether you hold on or not,
    and some become rooted
    through pain, an environment
    permanently changed.

    And that’s what I saw…

    trees with leaves
    showing things—
    I thought long forgotten.
    I was more surprised by that,
    than the fact that so many trees
    looked rotten.

    I could feel the tears
    touch the corners of my eyes—
    the air was thick again,
    humid and suffocating.
    There was a tremor in my chest,
    and knees were weak—
    with every step my bones were quaking,
    like the earth was shaking.

    I stumbled and fell to my knees,
    head bowed—
    in shame or respect,
    who knows, now?
    I opened my mouth,
    but no jokes came out—
    I couldn’t misdirect from this,
    no sleight of hand.

    I had to face this—
    whatever it is,
    whatever these leaves
    show me,
    I’ve got to take it seriously—
    because maybe it is these memories
    that are keeping me stuck here.

    Maybe they are the memories
    that drive the fear,
    that keeps me from acting—
    that keeps me dragging feet
    and self-sabotaging.

    Slowly I rise—
    like the sun over the horizon.
    Knees shaking from the weight of me,
    I struggle to take one step
    and then another.

    I stumble through the ruins
    of thoughts, dreams and memories—
    my chest rises and falls,
    like oxygen is in short supply.

    Then I see it—
    a single rose in bloom,
    poking through the ashes
    of nights only remembered
    in the spilled ink on silent pages.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [One Honest Sentence]
    It’s easy to write about anything. What’s difficult is writing one completely honest sentence without hiding behind humor, references, or metaphor. One Honest Sentence explores the distance between poetic confidence and emotional vulnerability.

    [Leave No Self Behind]
    What if finding yourself isn’t about discovering someone new, but learning to walk beside every version you’ve ever been? “Leave No Self Behind” is a meditation on memory, healing, and embracing the selves we once abandoned.

    [More Afraid Than the Ink]
    Some confessions are easy to write but impossible to speak. More Afraid Than the Ink explores fear, dreams, recurring symbols, and the quiet realization that the page has always been braver than the poet.

    [Just Human]
    Just Human is a reflective free verse poem about seeing people before borders, choosing empathy over division, and finding home in our shared humanity rather than on a map.

    [Translating What I Feel]
    A poem about the invisible process of turning emotion into imagery, imagery into language, and language into poetry. An intimate reflection on creativity, loneliness, and twenty-three years of learning to translate what the heart feels.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]

  • Before We Created the Labels | A Mythic Poem About Division & Human Unity

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece began with an image:

    a ritual repeated so many times that the people performing it stopped questioning the structure around it.

    At first, I thought I was writing horror.

    Ancient gods. Sacred chants. A collapsing building.

    But somewhere in the middle of the piece, the emotional center shifted.

    The horror was no longer the gods returning.

    It was what they returned to.

    This poem is ultimately about separation—how humanity continuously divides itself into categories, tribes, borders, identities, ideologies, and opposing sides. Not because difference itself is wrong, but because we so often transform difference into distance.

    Into hierarchy.
    Into conflict.
    Into “us” and “them.”

    The gods in this piece are intentionally left undescribed because they are less important as individuals and more important as witnesses. They remember humanity before those divisions hardened into walls.

    Before labels stopped being descriptive and started becoming weapons.

    And importantly: this piece is not arguing against culture, identity, language, or individuality. Those differences are part of what make humanity beautiful. The tragedy is not diversity—it’s disconnection.

    The collapse in this poem is symbolic.

    Not the destruction of difference, but the destruction of the structures that keep people separated from one another.

    And beneath all the mythology, rituals, and ancient imagery, there is a quieter question lingering underneath it all:

    What would humanity look like if we learned to see each other before the labels again?

    — Rowan Evans

    An ancient ritual chamber collapsing as mysterious godlike figures emerge while frightened worshippers look on.
    The horror was never the gods returning—it was the world they returned to.

    Before We Created the Labels
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Each footstep
    echoed through the dark,
    the only sound
    to pierce the veil of silence.

    One by one,
    they filed into the room—

    each taking their place,
    as though they’d done this
    a thousand times.

    As the final of the covenant
    found their mark—

    they began to chant
    in ancient tongues.
    Languages of old,
    long forgotten to the world.

    The air in the room
    began to change—

    and it wasn’t humidity’s game.

    A presence became clear,
    even with no form to see.

    Their chants continue
    in a sacred chorus,
    as they call
    ancient gods forth.

    Air shimmered
    and walls shook,
    foundation cracks—

    and the air
    grew thicker still.

    Voices grew quiet,
    the chanting fading low—

    wood creaks,
    cracks expand.

    The room filled
    with whispers,
    voices from everywhere
    and nowhere—

    all at one time.

    As the whispers
    grew in volume,
    becoming booming
    shouts.

    Buildings shook,
    foundations shifted
    and the ground
    gives out.

    Fear filled—
    eyes of the covenant.

    A ritual done
    a thousand times,
    and a thousand times
    the gods would come—

    a sacrifice would be made,
    but the rules had changed.

    The building
    begins to come down,
    as the covenant runs out.

    Now, the gods unconfined—
    can see the world
    they left behind,
    for the first time.

    It wasn’t with judgement—
    it was grief,
    because they saw the cracks
    and fractures,
    the tragic divides.

    They remember a time,
    when their creation—
    was all one.

    Before we created
    the labels to divide.

    As they looked around
    at what the world
    had become—

    a series of lines
    separating sides.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [The Unkindness Descends]
    “The Unkindness Descends” is a Gothic symbolic poem exploring collapse, transformation, and the unsettling experience of being witnessed during moments of unraveling. Through raven imagery, ambiguity, and ritualistic atmosphere, the poem invites multiple interpretations—spiritual, psychological, ominous, or transformative.

    [I Write Cathedrals]
    “I Write Cathedrals” explores faith, doubt, belonging, and the search for meaning beyond certainty. Through Gothic spiritual imagery and confessional reflection, the poem examines how writing can become a sacred space for questioning, wonder, and the people who feel displaced by traditional structures of belief.

    [Drought Resistant]
    “Drought Resistant” is a confessional poem about growing up poor in California’s Central Valley—where triple-digit heat, EBT cycles, dry ramen, and hard landscapes become part of emotional memory. Blending humor, slang, and working-class reflection, the poem explores survival, regional identity, and complicated love for the place that shaped you.

    [Escaped to the Page]
    “Escaped to the Page” is a confessional meta-poem about individuality, artistic identity, and surviving through writing. Blending sharp confidence with emotional vulnerability, the poem explores the difference between shared labels and lived experience—and the ways art becomes inseparable from the life behind it.

    [Ink as a Second Mouth]
    “Ink as a Second Mouth” explores the distance between thought and speech, and the ways writing can become a form of survival, continuity, and self-translation. Through confessional imagery and reflections on growth, identity, and articulation, the poem examines what it means to keep becoming through language.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]

  • The Unkindness Descends | A Gothic Poem About Ravens & Transformation

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece began with a single image:

    a person kneeling on broken marble while ravens circled overhead.

    From there, the symbolism unfolded naturally.

    Ravens have carried countless meanings across cultures and mythologies throughout history. Omens. Messengers. Witnesses. Archivists of the dead. Harbingers of transformation. Keepers of memory. In some traditions they are feared. In others, revered.

    I didn’t want to narrow them down to one interpretation here.

    What interested me more was the tension between collapse and observation—the feeling of being seen during moments of unraveling, and the uncertainty of whether those watching forces are condemning you, mourning you, studying you, guiding you, or simply recording what happened.

    That’s why the poem never fully explains the ravens.

    Even the collective noun “unkindness” became important to me while writing. It carries two meanings at once: a literal group of ravens, and the emotional atmosphere surrounding the speaker. The word itself becomes part of the tension.

    By the end of the piece, the ravens remain unresolved intentionally.

    They part. They watch. They follow.

    Whether that final image feels threatening, protective, spiritual, psychological, or transformative depends almost entirely on how the reader chooses to see them.

    And I think that uncertainty is the point.

    — Rowan Evans

    A lone figure surrounded by ravens on broken marble in a dark Gothic setting.
    They descended like witnesses—whether to condemn, mourn, guide, or remember was never made clear.

    The Unkindness Descends
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I kneel on broken marble,
    the unkindness circling overhead.
    Ravens watching as I come undone.

    Witnesses to my fall,
    the ravens land—
    one by one,
    the unkindness descends
    upon me.

    I am lost in the black mass—
    wing and feather flapping
    as ravens move to circle me.

    My eyes scanned the ravens
    as they surrounded me,
    each uttered something—
    a word, a message.

    Perhaps, it was a lesson?

    Maybe I read it all wrong,
    and they were just keeping record—
    witnesses to my collapse.

    I rose to my feet.
    The ravens watched me.

    I moved.
    They parted
    like the Red Sea.

    Each step forward,
    their eyes traced my path.
    As I moved through,
    they closed in behind me.

    Following.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [I Write Cathedrals]
    “I Write Cathedrals” explores faith, doubt, belonging, and the search for meaning beyond certainty. Through Gothic spiritual imagery and confessional reflection, the poem examines how writing can become a sacred space for questioning, wonder, and the people who feel displaced by traditional structures of belief.

    [Drought Resistant]
    “Drought Resistant” is a confessional poem about growing up poor in California’s Central Valley—where triple-digit heat, EBT cycles, dry ramen, and hard landscapes become part of emotional memory. Blending humor, slang, and working-class reflection, the poem explores survival, regional identity, and complicated love for the place that shaped you.

    [Escaped to the Page]
    “Escaped to the Page” is a confessional meta-poem about individuality, artistic identity, and surviving through writing. Blending sharp confidence with emotional vulnerability, the poem explores the difference between shared labels and lived experience—and the ways art becomes inseparable from the life behind it.

    [Ink as a Second Mouth]
    “Ink as a Second Mouth” explores the distance between thought and speech, and the ways writing can become a form of survival, continuity, and self-translation. Through confessional imagery and reflections on growth, identity, and articulation, the poem examines what it means to keep becoming through language.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]