Where the old road meets the new road
I stand the guard at morn,
Where one comes winding down the hill,
The other, through it torn.
October’s friendly fingers dipped
In every mellow shade
Have touched the leaves on all the trees
That stand within the glade.
In distant treetops I behold,
As I have seen in clouds,
The faces of my heroes
Or dead men in their shrouds.
The marching columns pass me by,
All sailor lads in blue.
And some will wink, and some will smile,
The way young fellows do.
walks between the beds
critical of eye, noting the way the leaves
of corn have curled upon themselves,
rattling in hardly any breeze at all.
They'd like to make believe it's Autumn now,
would they? Playing at getting past the part
where seed heads form, waving their silky hair,
and then depart, leaving the leaves bereft
of any purpose but to leave this world --
except, of course, they don't: that is the gift
of mulch. She brings the hose and couples to
its end a yellow whirligig, made to sing
the holy song of water to the leaves.
Today, green fullness. Tomorrow, living grain.
It’s not a question of letting
go but of never having had
hold. It’s not a question.
Our hands are empty often
and at best only transfer,
never own. Possession is
nine tenths of illusion.
Hands operate as points
lines use to reach points-next.
We might say all lives
are way-stations to nowhere: The I
passes through the Me,
connecting points to point
of ceasing-to-be. In a
related story, animals
demonstrate how to live
Leaves fall like words
on a page, punctuations
in time.
Summers passing, flights
of geese, the
loosening of ties.
Orange ambiguity
leaf and butterfly
fluttering.
One to fall, crinkle
and wither, the other
freedom and flight.
Tinge of frost
kisses the grass,
apples catch the dew
on burning cheek.
Hot mouth shivers,
anticipation - sharp
teeth snag the skin
taste the bitter essence.
sunny autumn day
only a few rocks jutting out
from the river
autumn clouds
the little tick before
each petal falls
one at a time
the yellow leaves drift
to the ground
the last to go
in late autumn twilight
slender birch
even after closing
the bedroom drapes
full November moon
First leaf of fall
as temperatures drop ,
letter from home.
The last three summers, as she recalls them,
Her heavy-clay bit of earth opened hexagonally;
Into the depths she stared, seeing dry darkness
So desiccated, she fancied worms and millipedes
In despair had decamped, seeking other worlds.
She poked at crevasses with her stick, finding bottom
Well deeper than twelve inches. Not knowing
How to garden in any but a rain forest, she
Attacked books and websites for some scheme
The budget could be stretched for: shade cloths,
Raised beds, huge-log hugelkulturs, keyhole beds.
All were possible, but her hands, old, worked
In fits and starts; her money allocated elsewhere.
Now she startles, looking at her night sky, so steeped