Leaf, river, sky

10/19

 to passing traffic

               along the Hudson River Park

tell me

and I’ll listen

for tales of ways

I’ve not lived 

enough,

tell me now,

and I’ll speak it back

in breath and blood

before it’s been

too long.                           

**

Indian Summer

The leaves, since Sunday, the leaves in the tree

across the street, yellowing green to gold

and the river, the river too, minute to minute,

its face rippling light.

**

10/21

Through the tunnel under the river, 

the bus moves south through Jersey woods, 

where fall befalls hills turned lonely with color, 

where rains loose their hold, skies turn whole 

and memories 

speak to things never forgotten

to a child’s eyes.

**

10/22

Farmington

Promises only a river can make

fill night air here, drip wind-blown banks

and those who walk the Delaware.

Staggered tangles and leaf-shorn branches

cry out the silent rift, as singular leafs 

turn to trace the falling season.

**

And at once outside, and morning,

brisk, low-coming sun

lays brush to the bellies

of a wedge of ducks

made gold 

in the first  blue 

of day. 

*****

The gathering…

in the subtle retention of place and role, 

the older cousin of the oldest friend,

even into our seventies, serves 

and nurtures the flame:

blessed are the memory keepers

*

after fifty years plus, the handshake

of the once serious, once young man

is stiff; but familiar features and tone

fracture timid distance, and time as well,

the parting gathering of arms

telling the longer story

*

warm smiles, quiet good-byes,

none of us making promises 

of again

*****

Crescent City Witness

There, above the fluid swirls of the Mississippi,

the bottom-crescent moon and a solitary star 

watch day break 

over accrued river darkness,

over its great, un-rushed turn,

till sky at last suggests 

the reach into blue.

**

There’s certain momentum that comes

of time spent over an open page

filling with word forms, 

with weight and tone, 

with meaning, unfolding there like so many 

scattered scratches left behind on the playground, 

the business of play complete, the children 

turning their attention elsewhere, 

original motivations not so different

from our own.

**

A Seasonal Story

November First came at that first click,

along with Very Dark, who lingered steady,

even as Seven AM arrived, like some secret

signal to Winter, who I swear I saw there, 

right then, but distant, raise its head 

like from a pillow—Very Dark held still,

waited—Winter slowly laying back, mumbling 

something I couldn’t make out.

It was too far off, and raining.

Very Dark then left. 

**

At first light, the deep-throated engine

of the young neighbor’s car, clears itself

back to life, then settles again, this time 

in well-tuned, low-humming readiness, 

just as I do when waiting the next word 

from the grandchild’s smiling lips,

watching that irrepressible light, that spark, 

there in his eyes, that calls out

that same dance and pulse 

to mine, calls back the why behind the what 

that enables us both to see the wonder 

to be seen there.