Nomads
frail
all summer they drank the sun
now dry
leaves fall
bone senses what remains
we talk too much remember too much
wind picks up
the world is emptying
earth opens its black heart
what islands
on the other side
****
Going Home in Autumn
This bent and pitted road
eases through the fall
into ochre jubilation.
Strange and warm -
to have arrived where mapping ends
and nothing next can begin
****
Human Nature
Our troops hold fast in winter,
advance and attack in spring.
Then planners, merchants, showgirls.
They can’t hear the drum of autumn
beating like some ancient heart.
It’s more a rhythm than a sound.
The elders gave it welcome.
There’s silence between the drumbeats
where certainties fade out.
Here time makes a long turn around.
You feel it drift through the holes
in the screen we painted with stars.
****
The Academy of Leaves
Thoughts that swell into beliefs
are yet too green.
The light that slides to grey
more fully senses ground:
as the sun grows cool
and the leafing urge is burning out,
earth receives due touch.
Dear widening ground...
with loamy paws that turn things over,
and sift through the fiery tones.
Black and white decompose.
By December every page is blank.
We graduate to devotion.
****
Winter Knocking
the window doesn’t feel so snug
a dull light is leaning on the glass
a sharp-eyed frost is creeping close
its cops are at the door
stash golden days deep in your heart
act normal
we got away with them for so long
but time's up on barefoot days
and roaming under open skies
a cold clear rule is coming
so get small hunker down
chew the old truths into a nest
until through the childless city
the piper returns
and with squeaky voices
we can scurry out
wild and hungry and messy as spring.
****
Rain Chorus
always grey
always clear
to the inconsolable
we murmur welcome
remember: you are water
all land burns
****
Evening walk
along the dirt track
between the houses and the trees
the fading world posts its signs
among what I should have been
but the evening receives me
it is neither eager nor remote
and its grey blue impartiality
accepts my tangle and weight
a shadow jogs in front of me
it scratches at the earth
then halts
sensing the whistle of light
my faceless head
unlocks and turns
into the flood of the wide-eyed moon