Every year, an old friend visits,
Knocking on the morning door,
Before the chickens go out.
Just for a day,
Maybe two.
.
The old rivers of light and heat,
Much alive, cry
In their thirst for night,
With the promises of fading evenings liquored
In the scent of blackberries and stale grass
Hiding in the hot afternoon.
.
This crooked summer:
Like wilting vines on a broken arbor,
Motionless, as they cling fast
To the memories of serpentine edens.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Like old days come to visit again,
Now the dampness will live here,
For a good long while, Defining
Hopefully
This place and this time.
Soon, the waves of hungry cold
Will take the leaves,
Peaches, pears, finally the apples.
Always the last apple.
.
Released, now
To a brief ease of playing in a fickle sun
Soon covered by the gauze of quick rains.
Rains that sneak through,
Leaving grand dripping choirs
And the late night sounds of wet soil.
.
The day opens to waters passing,
And the joy of new light.
The world tilts far enough now
Where summer is almost a secret,
And lifetimes can easily pass in the still air.
.
During our walks, then,
Over brilliant orange, gold and new sky,
Her sadness came to be:
Neatly placed
Into the yielding grasp
Of a freshly fallen maple leaf.
Then, sealed into a shiny blue envelope:
Scribbled on,
When short notes were a thing
Of long Sunday afternoons.
.
Moving water is still great at counting time now,
And will soon lap at the stone steps
Of a clapboard church out there,
Hosting the wailing choirs
Of straggled people turned sane again.
I need to give a shout here to Joan Didion for the way she did it.
When the Afternoon Holds Just Enough
Life and dying,
Should be familiar
In the narrow, empty spaces
Hiding,
In the confusing mass of briars,
And dried or mildewed berries:
Take your pick,
While the shadowed visitors of place
Sneak back home.
.
Somewhere, crosses a stretch ,
When memories,
Stretch further
Than the longness of stories
Our present circumstances
Polished in Elaboration.
.
The corner of life is turned
In some broad sweeping arc
Penciled in years,
And hidden in a dozen tin cans
Buried in the yard
Over a period of irregular years.
.
The day’s path gives a ride
A good long while,
Moving, really moving along.
The time, like the knob of some old radio,
Cranking slowly one way,
At once fading and boisterous.
.
Nobody talks about this stuff,
Like politics and newcomers,
Poking,
Unless we can all turn askew,
Upwards. All of us.
‘Cause we all see it our own crooked ways.
And one more:
Don’t fall for the witching hour,
Telling you, this moment:
Some speck of time,
that could turn the day.
No. Don’t.
Just watch this time,
like it was back then.
The afternoon holds just enough
Life and dying,
To be familiar
In the narrow, empty spaces
That keep to themselves
In a confusing mass of briars,
And dried or mildewed berries:
Take your pick.
While the shadowed visitors of place
Return home.
.
The day’s path gives a ride
Good sojourns,
Moving, really moving along.
And this time:
Like the knob of some old radio,
Cranked slowly one way,
Boisterous and fading
Again and again.
.
Nobody talks about this stuff,
Making for poor politics.
None, really.
Unless we can all turn askew,
Upwards. All of us.
.
‘Cause we all see it our own crooked ways.
.
And one more:
Don’t fall for the witching hour,
Telling you, this moment:
Some speck of time,
that could turn the day.
No. Don’t.
Just watch this time,
like it was back then.
March, April, May
Those hideous months of spring
And dying.
Times to drink to oblivion
Or get sober
Because things have gotten that bad.
More than once.
.
Summer is just a known
Constant staleness, defying perpetuity.
And time of asking calendars
About the rules of a waiting game,
Measured in drought,
Day length,
And sometimes tomatoes.
.
Give me those 4 days in October,
September, November.
Doesn’t matter:
It’s when the counting ceases,
And the shadows come to stay.
Shaken Rain 