Autumn

In the locus of the light of the cool café,

on hot August day of spoon-fed-breathing-in

deep green visions

of darkest Dixie jungle-

in the long run of a long hot summer,

hoping to slumber to September,

when the sky begins to die

and I feel the companionship of the slow spirits

of harvest,

the starvest survivors

the hardest defyers of death.

I wait for wild fire Autumn, to crackle and pop and hiss

in the bliss of bonfire orange jack-o-lantern shadow

flickers on the fixtures of the night.

I wait for odd October, with his shoulders swinging

in the fields,

singing the work song of the thresher

                                     of the treasure

                                     of the treasure

                                      of the soil.

I remember November, like a great bird of bounty

spilling honey eggs on the plates of the poor.

I fall into fall like we all into the bed of love-

swaddle wrapped and bottle tapped and warm wine is best

on cool nights like this.

Chilly stars sparkle icy in the arch of Plutonian night.