since I last held you
I measure the days
in fallen leaves—
great brown mounds
beneath empty branches
Posts Tagged ‘fall’
Calendaring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, fall, leaves, missing, time on October 5, 2025| 4 Comments »
Tumbling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fall, grief, help, love on October 5, 2023| 9 Comments »
When everything’s falling,
when everything’s broken,
when all is ravel and rubble
and ransacked and ruin
and the world is a stuttering,
guttering blunder,
a plundered and ravaged thing,
that is when wonder arrives on the wings
of forgiving, and living arrives
on the wings of the dead, and
devotion arrives in the wreckage
of loss. And if to love
is to risk being tumbled
and fumbled and wrung out
and sprawled, to love
is also to trust there are hands
that will raise us,
amaze us with kindness,
calm hands that will lift up
our hurt-heavy hearts
as if it they’re as light
as red leaves in the fall.
Self-Portrait as Subordinate Clause
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, eternity, fall, grammar on September 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
and when
the larkspur
petals fall and when
the fall begins to sing
and when the song weaves
through the loss and when
the loss dyes
everything, when
everything is
emptier and emptiness
is whole somehow, when
whole is what a life
does, when life is
what is now, when
now is
ever changing
and changing knows
no end, when
any ending
I might seek is
just another
when
Despite the Unleafing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, fall, leaves, meter, poem, poetry, shakespeare, song on October 17, 2019| 4 Comments »
That time of year thou mayst in me behold …. Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
And though the leaves may fall and molder,
though the winter nights get colder,
and though, my love, we both grow older,
may the choir in me that sings for you
be ever clear and ever blue—
the stream beneath your red canoe.
And though it seems that time’s a thief
and leaf subsides to crumbled leaf
and though the days are gnawed by grief,
may I sing for you forever sweet
in tunes both tame and indiscreet—
sing bare, unruined, my heart, my beat.
If You Hear a Rustle, Perhaps
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged angel, fall, grass, poem, poetry, rest, spring on November 10, 2018| 8 Comments »
Every blade of grass has an angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”
—The Talmud
Imagine them, all those angels
jostling over the field,
catching their hands
in each other’s halos,
their wings a shimmering
fuss. Imagine the rising tide
of the chorus, how
whisper turns clamor
turns turbulent roar.
Imagine the dizzying pitch
of encouragement, grow,
Grow, GROW, until bam!
a riotous tumult of green.
But what of the song
at the end of the season,
when angels, exhausted,
sigh rest, rest. And they press
their tired cheeks against
each other’s faces, let
their wings dangle
in lucent grace. And the field,
seeded, relaxes and goldens
and sleeps. And the angels
snuggle in sacred heaps and breathe,
and breathe, white robes
like snow, and they sleep talk
between their sonorous snores,
that’s enough, dear one, let go.
Hymn to What’s Bare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged emptiness, fall, poem, poetry, soul, wind on October 21, 2017| 2 Comments »
Last night’s wind scoured
the trees and stripped
their boughs—
it is easy in today’s calm
to wish my soul had been out
in the woods last night.
Emptiness reveals more
than all the gold, all design.
Only Difference is They Don’t Bruise
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged angel, apple, fall, poem, poetry on March 22, 2017| 2 Comments »
Of course the angels fall—
perhaps when leaning in closer
to hear our whispers
or when trying to keep up with us
as we dance—
perhaps because they wish
in that moment for bodies such as ours,
bodies so full of hope and passion,
so alive with risk and rush,
that they trip on their hems
and forget for a moment
they have wings, forget for a moment
they’re supposed to be guarding us,
preferring to watch as we fall, too,
all of us ripe, sweet apples.
When October Goes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, fall, loss, love, poem, poetry on October 13, 2014| 1 Comment »
And now we come to the part of autumn
which is more fell than falling.
It’s hard to not miss the gold,
just as it’s hard to not miss the lips
of your lover when he’s gone.
You tell yourself that absence
makes the heart grow. Your self
is not impressed. You tell yourself
that the absence
is beautiful. But absence today is
absence—an inability to be present,
and your thoughts are anywhere
but here—in fact, they have gone to one
specific anywhere where it’s still
gold and warm and the heart
is so full it can’t hear a word anyone says
in an attempt to warn it
about how things change.
Migration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, birds, fall, poem, poetry on October 20, 2013| 1 Comment »
the bird inside me
migrated
I miss its song—
this morning was so quiet
watching frost melt
on the fallen leaves
*
did I, too, forget
how to sing?
did I also
fly away
from myself?
*
my hands
do not need to be asked—
they move unbidden
to touch the places
on my body
where the pain
unfolds
*
and here
and here
and here—
touch me here
and here
and here
*
what use is a tongue?
what use is song?
what use these hands?
what use silence?
*
who is the one
who thinks of the world
in terms of usefulness?
*
it was a long time
before I heard
the leaves had a song
of their own
but only
when
I moved
*
the nest
is still here
inside—when
you’re not looking
I fold up my
silence, my
hands, my
wants
and hide
*
is it
so wrong
sometimes
I pretend
I am
gone
Of Leaves and Ideas
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, autumn, fall, freedom, letting go, poem, poetry on October 3, 2012| 3 Comments »
so small
the weight
and yet
too much
to hold
and so
it falls
not that
it is
not lovely
not that
it is
not wanted
not that
we could
force the
liberation
just that
it is
time
for it
to fall
Long Time Coming
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aspen, autumn, change, evolution, fall, poem, poetry, stillness on September 17, 2012| 5 Comments »
Just this morning
the leaves were green
in this stand of aspen
that now flash gold—
it happens that fast,
though of course
there is nothing
quick about it.
It took a whole season
to grow the leaf
and nurture it into
brilliance. And
it took decades
to grow the tree that grew
the leaf. And what
of evolution? Oh patience.
Perhaps this is why
on the woman who’s finally learning
how to sit still beside the leaves
there’s a bit of salt water
sliding down her skin.
With All the Seeds Inside
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, fall, poem, rebirth, thistle on December 1, 2011| 2 Comments »
There is no work
for the dried out thistle
but to be dry—the earth
has long since spent
its richest greens
and the thistle globes,
spiny and brown,
need now do nothing
but prove how
everything falls.