Granny’s Porch (pt II)

~ SamF

The back stairs

The kids will run up and down,

Asking about that pie on the table,

Again,

While waiting for one more oven baked treat.

Pests of the best.

.

The great December sky holds us here,

Like nothing ever will

Ever again.

.

I usually lie

Saying it’s beef tongue

In chipotle sauce.

And the men will smoke in the yard,

Feigning responsibility,

While the hens cluck and brood.

.

Hiding the last of fall’s huckleberries,

In plain sight,

On a plain tablecloth,

Beckoning to kids,

Running in from the back door,

To see what happens next.

A Solstice Remembered

~ SamF

I thought October would take the edge off.

After all, there’s no way this fickle light

and a few chance rains

Could turn my head any further.

.

Now the garden is all dead,

The light,

All left to morning now,

Just like yesterday,

And then again.

Please give me this solace,

Wanted and waited for,

Just this day.

.

Until you visit me in December,

With your gauze of reckoning

Perched overhead.

.

Then, I’ll remember the river,

All fog bound and sullen,

Bit by bit,

Tearing to pieces

The lives of nothing.

.

I hope your storms will roar,

Dark, dripping days,

Left with just a little ray of light,

Catching one more leaf,

Falling,

Into some forgotten cradle.

Granny’s Porch

~ SamF

I barely remember seeing the night,

Like an old, dry Autumn

Not going away.

 

Help me turn this knob,

Sliding back,

To the waiting moon,

Eating at sunset’s table.

.

Let us turn this season,

Facing the wind:

Fading, 

Faltering,

Disappeared.

.

Now come help us mend this place,

Spilling our anxious tears as one,

To gently warm this evening.

If you go down that way

~ SamF

The slick waters will hold you there.

.

Time will become afternoon’s fast,

Before it curses the evening.

.

There is nothing moving water cannot cure.

Slipping gently downhill.

.

I just love swinging that fly through water I know.

.

One fish took me five years.

The others came back-to-back.

On a warm October afternoon.

The next will be my life.

Daring to dream a death amongst cobbles

On a liquored blackberry evening,

When the wind disappeared.

.

Fodder for caddis,

And winter’s green water to come.

The Magistrates of Light

~ SamF

Call early, to the stillness.

Follow all the shadows soon missed

Only to consume us.

.

Colored in leaf,

Painted in agony,

Watered in respite.

.

If I could escape time, 

I’d choose not,

Rather to wallow

In sores

And dirt,

Gone dry and waiting.

Poem for Symphony Elatia

~ SamF

.

Flail your gentle woes onto me,

And know that we will surely meet come Spring,

When the warmth calls again.

.

The soft caress of hill on sky,

The ease of soft grass,

The fetch of breeze on sun,

Releasing us from this torpid coil.

.

Count closely now,

Fingers won’t hold,

These tiny bits of air,

Teasing and sparkling,

Fluttering and moving,

Dancing to the new rhythm

Of a living sun.

.

I ask that we meet at the corner,

Where the long call of morning sits,

With flowering vines to hide us,

Scented in colors and closed eyes,

Wrapping us, curling us,

Pulling us into the stars above.

Gardens – Gothic Poetry Revisited

~ SamF

Gardens

.

The sky is indifferent to this corner,

While another ecology watches over

The intricacies of winter’s web.

.

Horizons are born here,

And will shine,

One last time,

Into a still gaze of stone.

.

Surely these things will linger.

.

We might be free then,

Sitting in the fading wind,

And sun.

At last.

While our shames fade

Into temples of silence.

.

No turning away,

No denial,

The great sweep of time,

Will gather this all up,

And bring us home

Once again.

In Fading Light

~ SamF

Forget holding these days,

Slipping into winter’s cache.

Forget staring into evening’s countdowns

No sense is made in counting light

Where time is the futile game of the insane.

The last turn (part IV)

~ SamF

The daily bread,

Given on this day,

Cast in poppies

And blooming blackberry corners,

Everything sprawled and covered.

.

Just over the hill,

Nights feed on themselves:

Fickle contests of fading light.

Here, the din of thrush,

Trickles of water,

And a last, hushing turn of leaves

On a vanishing breeze,

Where doors open to the old memories

Of dusty roads, watermelon mornings and

The easiness riding along.

.

One last whisper of rain,

Faint, barely promised,

Never seen.

That’s it.

The faithful tenancy of days has arrived.

Black Trumpets

~ SamF

If I could take the whole forest into my hand,

Tanoak, madrone, and the spicy essence 

Of a lone fir tree,

And squeeze it out into a single drop:

The liquor of dark, damp soil,

Moss and rocks.

Then let this droplet flow carelessly

Down some small trickle of winter’s remains,

Gather it up,

Warm it gently,

And partake of the world,

This place,

A moment captured.