She is festive October,
summer in husk and rouge.
All sign points again
to birthday weather,
to ragged celebration
and the odd gift.
Ribbons
dull and curl on the limb
where the hawk huddles.
Puffs of gray fur
dance crazily
where the fox
prowls for slow mice.
Late geese arrive, throaty
cries wobbling on the wind.
A wash line hums moist,
drafty refrains.
Birthday songs,
and I have been binding
these packages. Always,
my fingers slip; something
there is I cannot hold.
These gifts break cover
like quail, a moment of surprise,
sunlight silvering a flurry
of wings, and distance
grows too wide. Like our lives.
Everything left,
clues
to a clumsy mystery –
dried gut, mouse fur,
echoes of Canada
and the wind flagging
the bright, damp wash.
October revels, though she grows wan.
In revelers’ eyes, I read the alarm:
“It is not leaf by leaf
that love or summer dies.”
Published PAX, Vol. III, Nos. 1 & 2, Winter 1985 1986, p. 74