Vagaries of Choice (from the journal)

There are no words

for creeper’s fall color—

as rich now as the harvest moon.  10-2-12

Mint tea

the old memory—

Café Central in the rain,

like today.

Wet mocassins on my cold feet.  10-2-12

The long rain.

All the saucers are full,

all the spider webs frosted.  10-3-12

What’s a poem?

A breath full of morning mist

touched by crickets, all the little crickets.  10-3-12

The river runs through the cloud

sitting on the ground, on us,

the finest rain.  10-3-12

On a morning

between summer and fall

crickets go on about it.  10-4-12

Poke condensing to yellow and maroon,

creeper to rose,

the star tree to orange.

All smaller, one color at a time.  10-4-12

Issa Connection (for David Lanoue)

All the single moments

of one  man’s life

blown here—

dark brush marks on paper,

translated for my morning breath.  10-4-12

As pale as moonlight

bladdernut turns

toward sleep.  10-5-12

The old woman closed the door,

refused the book, shut the blinds.

Going slowly by herself, alone.

Let it be like a soap bubble breaking,

all the air free now,

free to be.  10-5-12

Winter came overnight,

cold, on a wind that rests here,

quietly in the rain.  10-7-12

Nothing moves in the wood—

the birds, the leaves, the air—

all are waiting for what comes next.  10-7-12

The old path wrapped in bark,

stiff now, from decisions,

supporting horizontal

vagaries of choice, for light,

with buds as flexible

as breath.   10-8-12

One red leaf

in the dogwood sapling

lights the dark wood.  10-8-12

Across the wood

orange leaves rise

like froth on a green wave.  10-9-12

One wren

in the quiet morning

speaks.  She speaks

about the cold.  10-9-12

A pile of papers

on the square table.

A book almost finished.  10-9-12

A shadow across the wood.

It’s squirrel up on the woodpile,

gaining ground.  10-10-12

Blue jay climbs the maple.

Orange leaves fall with

each step.  10-10-12

The wooded light

moves and doesn’t move

across autumn breath

not yet cold.  10-13-12

This morning light is different from all the others—

this light comes from honeysuckle’s yellow leaves,

from bladdernut’s yellow leaves,

from maple’s yellow leaves.

A new light with only yesterday’s woods

to reflect it.  10-15-12

Red on the salmon

flagstones—

three maple leaves.  10-15-12

Suddenly rain comes

out of a yellow-gray sky.

Everywhere in the woods

squirrels whip their tails.  10-15-12

Poke’s dried berries

float on yellow and maroon branches—

a color we wait all year for.  10-15-12

Star tree glows from inside.

It’s her inner orange

showing through.  10-15-12

It’s a special weight dogwood has,

her orange leaves holding the eye,

the heart.  10-15-12

Under the singing redbird

sassafras shows her

first yellow leaves.  10-17-12

Sunlight poppies ring the art building.

My pockets fill with their

thin brown seeds.  10-17-12

Who will know?

No one will know

when the snowbirds

invert, black for white.  10-17-12

From the far woods

hickory looks in—

green breathing to gold.  10-17-12

Herringboned between summer and fall,

between green and yellow—

the lost wild olive.  10-18-12

The yellow wood

comes closer wearing

blue jay in its lapel.  10-19-12

In the rain—

warmth,

yellow warmth, advancing.

Blue jay

in the bare hickory

tips her tail.  10-19-12

They threw down their shoes

those two little girls did,

running now down the path

with feet flying to the side,

the liquid giggles

coming down.  10-20-12

Curling forward slowly,

along the brown back,

the white tail in a spot of sun

is all I see of the deer, head down,

pawing up the partridge berry.  10-20-12

With the sun from behind,

hickory’s golden leaves

are all we can see.  10-20-12

That color,

that orange dogwood color,

and myrtle’s red

next to the cinnamon wren

smell like dusty maple leaves

curling up on the ground.  10-25-12

Yellow all the way to Baltimore,

the yellow road,

the yellow Eskimo, the bronze,

the stolen one.  10-25-12

Autumn.

The pink Sieboldii’s

open.  10-25-12

Where was I walking

yesterday when I heard catbird?

No catbirds here now.  10-25-12

The great white storm whirled through.

Yet, still here—

the yellow and orange wood.  10-30-12

Peace now.

Behind the green honeysuckle,

hickory’s golden self is alight

under gray light.  10-30-12

Sea green, cinnamon, gold—

autumn’s other colors threaded through

rain-darkened trunks.  10-31-12

The cloud moved.

The light moved.

Hickory’s empty branches are silver now

in the dry raining light.  10-31-12

It’s like painting,

loose, with colors,

and the other things that shine in the light,

in the dark,

moving things that sigh

with enough breath, 

sharing mine. 10-31-12