Monthly Archives: October 2014

Beautiful World On the Edge of Dying

19 Sunday Oct 2014

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The world is most beautiful

On the edge of death:

Mid-October geraniums,

Profuse with crimson petals,

Dense green leaves,

Gather in tight families

Around the Aspen’s knee.

The roses,

Who struggled in heat,

Explode in bunches of white

Their outstretched arms

Wind loosely over the tattered fence.

The Aspen’s petioles fade to yellow,

Its leaves are framed with yellow,

The birds flittering among its branches

Tipping in gentle wind.

There is no snow, no stinging cold,

No blister of heat, or ankle-deep mud,

Only knowing it will all end soon,

The landscape will dull,

The skies will drop with silence,

As we’ll wait, and wait,

For what has already been.

Early Fall Ride: Palisades Park

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

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You should have wished for rain,
But you relished the sun, instead,
And the sweet smell of orchard grass,
In the pinto’s October sweat.
Before you left,
You stood under the bow,
And plucked an apple,
Ripe with the full bloom
Of a long summer.
You held it outstretched
Until all that was left
Was the juice, and the salt
From the palm of your open hand.

You should have wished for rain,
But you relished the sun, instead,
And his slow steps down steep trails,
Adrift of dirt and loose chunks of basalt.
The robin and wren, tree swallows and chickadees,
Flitted among branches of Ponderosa, Serviceberry,
and the Hawthorn with its dangerous nails,
While you thought of nothing but that,
And how your horse’s mane felt in your hands.

Becoming Autumn

06 Monday Oct 2014

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Morning comes late,
And the autumn sun trembles
through Aspen arms.
Didn’t you say,
If the sun didn’t rise,
Or set, there’d be no time?
Yesterday, the eggs were cold,
In a nest of mud, and hay,
And strands from the pinto’s mane;
Such that, even the barn
Closes in on silence.
The family of cats, hunkered down
Behind fresh stacks of alfalfa,
Grow fat on a sudden flush of quail,
And the sun sets sooner now.
At last night’s fire,
You were shocked
At what the old man wasn’t afraid to say.
Later, you laughed at what he’d said,
Talked of the freedom of age,
And the benign closing of our souls.

First try:

The Autumn sun rises late,
Through the arms of Aspen,
Trembling in slow, cool wind.

Second Try:

The late-rising, Autumn sun,
Trembles through the Aspen’s arms,
In a slow, cool wind.