season cycle

Morning Ride To Old Mission Point Lighthouse, October

North to the lighthouse

the world distilled

to a drop of amber

sailing along

the singing rim

of a sun blown glass

full to the brim

a sin

to sip when

I can drain it dry

in one long pull

up the molten road

a golden toast

drunk

to relentless waning

light

shadows long licking

the last

of the grapes

south of Mapleton

clustered translucent

summer beads

in one final flare

combine with the glint

from the shards

of the empty glass

smashed heedlessly on

the verge

of road

unfurling

presenting itself

for the sacrament  

the lighthouse

balanced lightly at

the tip waves

breaking

on the shore

in endless supplication. 

raking leaves

Autumn

Tempting to lay in the yard looking up

at the sky this late in the day rake stilled

by my side handle and tines a short hand

punctuation mark, questions rising like

wood smoke to wreath trees humming softly as

they turn in for the long cold night, answers

perhaps nesting high in their branches, but

if there are the trees aren’t saying as they

step out of blowsy summer dresses that  

pool about their feet.  They pepper me with

a cacophony of hued muted prayers,

a burial ritual of tannic

seasoning, the laying on of red and

yellow serrated hands that gently hold

me down, one last patch of blue before first

one eye and then the other are covered

over, lids held in place by summer’s loose

pocket change, broad strokes of paired copper glint.

     

laboring in the hereafter

Dry Stone Wall

I emptied my lungs laced a stone snug eying

the pile for the next one destined by shape

and size rocking back on my heels in the

gaping maw of the famished snake uncoiled

gracefully across the undulating

landscape leisurely savoring each and

every morsel nestled there in the leafy

wrack flicking tail lost at the vanishing

point where the low ridge shoulders a stole of

smudged trees then took a deep breath that hitched on

my first word in this new place these autumn

woods my calloused hands voice betraying my

sheer surprise awakening in the sweet

by-and-by to eternal rhythmic labor

taking a moment to recall my last

banalities, marvel at the leaves fired

by the setting sun and dream of you there

just out of reach behind this dry stone wall.

Poem

Autumn Tale

Summer's gone

stow the screens, tarp the chairs, try to recall

the joke she

told by the fire near the lake under

a low moon,

was the dog still here, were the kids gone yet?

So long to

late night swims dipped to the neck in black ink

peppered with

starlight that rode the ripples in winking

cadence while

our hands moved like unseen fish brushing by.

Unnoticed,

autumn settled softly, rounded edges,

hooded eyes,

sifted in, buried us up to the neck,

warm, amazed

that the endless adventure was only

a tale told

by a fire, near a lake, ending, sweet.

November 18, 2011