Autumntide
The bird that hovers in a calico’s breath
chatters yesterday’s shadows away from behind the window glass.
From our bed, we hear a ticking, like the sound of snow on leaves.
Autumn wakes within us a clouded heartbeat,
enamoring us with her markings before she melts into flight:
brighter than cotton dusting the ground in patches,
her coat is so pure white, all of its colors ring out.
chatters yesterday’s shadows away from behind the window glass.
From our bed, we hear a ticking, like the sound of snow on leaves.
Autumn wakes within us a clouded heartbeat,
enamoring us with her markings before she melts into flight:
brighter than cotton dusting the ground in patches,
her coat is so pure white, all of its colors ring out.
Lost Spring
It began with the cries of the peepers’ songs,
floating high above a vernal pond,
sounding somehow more distant than before,
only to be silenced by a harsh wind
blowing open the door to a heartless season,
not unearthed until then,
when memories clung, wing-like, to air
thick with freshly budding trees after they’d fallen,
beneath a siege of machinery that uprooted woodlands
and set the last remnants of wildlife aflight,
like so many pieces of forgotten litter.
floating high above a vernal pond,
sounding somehow more distant than before,
only to be silenced by a harsh wind
blowing open the door to a heartless season,
not unearthed until then,
when memories clung, wing-like, to air
thick with freshly budding trees after they’d fallen,
beneath a siege of machinery that uprooted woodlands
and set the last remnants of wildlife aflight,
like so many pieces of forgotten litter.
Remembering with Eyes Closed
On a night walk through our old neighborhood with my sister,
where street lamps dimly buzz on every corner,
she tells me, while breathing heavily after just a few brisk steps,
that, when everyone in the house we grew up in slept,
she’d sneak out through a door in the kitchen
to ride her bike, alone, around the empty parking lot at school,
past the priests asleep in their rectory and the nuns in their convent,
and come home well before the white-gloved guard
appeared at her crosswalk the next morning.
Being older than me, my sister lags behind,
so I say we can turn around if she feels tired,
but, changing topics, she begins to inform me
who no longer lives in the gravely silent houses,
and how the one that was ours stands for sale
with a light left burning in its basement.
Lost in the sound of our footsteps echoing on the sidewalk,
I think I hear her say she always knew
she’d be a teacher and have two children
before leading me back through a shortcut she recalls from school.
Rounding a corner, I see the dismal building where our father, an aged widower,
rests between bouts with irrationality and cancer.
Slowing our steps, it suddenly doesn’t seem to matter all that much
what secrets we now share, what still lies buried, or what we’ve left behind.
As we enter his apartment, haunted by the pull of past cigarettes and melancholy,
we stumble back into time, awaking to the same hard light of the present.
where street lamps dimly buzz on every corner,
she tells me, while breathing heavily after just a few brisk steps,
that, when everyone in the house we grew up in slept,
she’d sneak out through a door in the kitchen
to ride her bike, alone, around the empty parking lot at school,
past the priests asleep in their rectory and the nuns in their convent,
and come home well before the white-gloved guard
appeared at her crosswalk the next morning.
Being older than me, my sister lags behind,
so I say we can turn around if she feels tired,
but, changing topics, she begins to inform me
who no longer lives in the gravely silent houses,
and how the one that was ours stands for sale
with a light left burning in its basement.
Lost in the sound of our footsteps echoing on the sidewalk,
I think I hear her say she always knew
she’d be a teacher and have two children
before leading me back through a shortcut she recalls from school.
Rounding a corner, I see the dismal building where our father, an aged widower,
rests between bouts with irrationality and cancer.
Slowing our steps, it suddenly doesn’t seem to matter all that much
what secrets we now share, what still lies buried, or what we’ve left behind.
As we enter his apartment, haunted by the pull of past cigarettes and melancholy,
we stumble back into time, awaking to the same hard light of the present.