Paul’s Substack

Paul’s Substack

Home
Notes
Archive
About
Before Wolf-Time
I fell in love in a meadow lost before wolf-time, where the air still held the hush of first things. Leaves, yellow and green, brown and red, trembled…
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
28
Music At the End of the World
At the end of the world there is no orchestra to play music only snow understands. Every theater is a hush without walls, and a roof open to the sky…
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
60
After the Fires
For Los Angeles
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
51
Vespers
Once I vanish into an opening line, words follow on their own without so much as an umbrella or a newspaper to keep them dry. Notebook paper, damp with…
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
45
The Eyes of the World
For Gaza, for Ukraine, For Us.
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
39
Beginnings
First Substack post, originally published August 13, 2023.
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
49
The Caterpillar and the Butterfly
A caterpillar knows the green urgency of its hungry crawl, t he taste of chlorophyl, the slow patience of eating. A caterpillar knows how to cling to a…
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
57
Cleaving
Where do you sleep tonight? What soft shoulder of earth has become the pillow where you rest your head? Is the sky that blankets you dark as death or…
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
52
What Is Left Remains
It is the season that both withers and endures, the sky a glass polished to reveal its own tarnish.
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
48
I Tried
I tried to like those songs you like I tried to play your game but cards and chess are such a mess and love is far less tame I tried to see what you…
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
59
Falling
Prompted by a comment from Martin McCarthy responding to Jonathan Potter's recent poem "I'd Walk on Water."
 • 
Paul Wittenberger
81

July 2025

© 2025 Paul Wittenberger
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture