At the End of September

At the end of September

as the trees distinguish themselves

it is easier to imagine I know

what Rilke meant when he wrote

Beauty is the beginning of terror

nights in the 40s

the grass slowing down

the coming of winter

one sure thing in this life

sure as age follows youth

runaway time and the rest

I shut down the saw

and head for the house

sawdust in my vest pockets

the world gone suddenly quiet

pleased by the look of log ends

stacked in the woodshed

annual rings concentric

yes yes yes we were foolish

but let's call it love and still

I see you here a lifetime ago

a walnut bangs off the sheetmetal roof

Startles me back to the present

flocking robins on the wire

bronzed by sunset

solidago going hoary and bowing

shedding cold rain in the field

goldfinches losing their luster

the world growing darker

finches evenings the field and me

It is needful to have night in one's body

said Robinson Jeffers being a poet

and I say Welcome

At the end of September

Some want it darker.

—Click on the last line for a song by Leonard Cohen.

Solo

Late unexpected rain

then ringing silence

as if you'd never been

Fragments at the Equinox

 

Crossing the equator

tipped away

where dreams recur

a double solitude

Poets being mirrors of the soul

face-to-face

as Borges knew

a  labyrinth

So just as well

except to say

what exquisite hell

being lost with you

All

 

Stop me here

Free in the sunset sky

Let me watch awhile

The wind against my cheek

Crows calling in the woods

That's all

—after Cavafy

Autumnal

The top of the hill is a stage

for the great balancing act

against the big screen of heaven

the transit of monarchs against towering vapor

the glide of hawks through evaporated seas

the life and the death in the fields

the seeds the wreckage the burrowing voles

the day and the dark and the light and the night

Unsettles the migrating birds as they flock

we feel it too the old urge to move

we feel it too but we stay

loving too much the world that we have

loving the chance to be in it

expecting the best as an act of will

expecting the best and finding it here

finding it here where we are.

Nomad

No use to embrace

Your compulsion to wander

O walker upright

No use to confess

You've searched all your life

O seeker of kindness and light

For someone to hear your confession.

Genius

Please click to enlarge.

Orb weavers reign

In the goldenrod field.

I am less important

Than the grass.

The End of Fantasy

Monarch and Sunflower

You made

the extraordinary

your province

Splanchnic stirrings

experimental

ventures of the id

The ordinary ever after

masking the surreal

my lost love

After Your Call

Cornfield, Upper Turkeyfoot

 

Crickets acorns sunsets

Long vistas clean lines

Vanishing points

On uncluttered horizons

Planetary interstellar

To feel our suspension

Hurtling through infinity

In our jacket of air

Thunderheads harvests meteors

Katydids leaf falls buck rubs

All the more miraculous

For universal solitude

Monarchs cellos E minor

Ubiquitous longing

Your favorite word

My penultimate state

Trumpeting geese overhead

And I miss you.

The Origin of Art

Father's blue today

Mother would confide

          Which meant

          Be careful what you say

Father was blue

On Thanksgiving

          And Mother

          Ate off the kitchen floor

Therefore poetry

          And the conviction

That happiness is

Too much to expect

          And the quiet days

          Are gods.

Was

I like to think

I saved you

In the end

Knowing

It is better

Not to know

But O what

Could have been

Instead of was

The Summoning

Waiting for the train to pass, Neshannock Falls, 1934. Cecil Hall photo

Help me, great grandfather,

to wait for what's coming,

to lie down in the garden

and sleep in the sun.

Lead me, old-timer,

to sit near the hearth,

rocking in silence, 

wicks turned down low,

Firelight on cheekbones,

lost sons and lost daughters,

the mantel clock counting,

help me, Will Hall,

Checking your watch

behind the house

where the rails used to be,

waiting for the coal train to pass,

Black smoke for the grade,

The Engineer in the cab,

his elbow and kerchief,

passing on time.

The house is still standing,

I am there waiting,

waiting with ghosts

for the ghost train.

Neshannock Falls, 1917. Cecil Hall photo