FALL WOOD (a poem), October, 2019

                                    FALL WOOD



Scuffling through dried leaves
I think of slurping hot soups
Turnip chunks, ‘shrooms, Swiss chard
Spaghetti
A table made of barn wood.                                                                     

Passing a young white pine
A smatter of snagged leaves
on limbs and needles:
Red maple, cinnamon oak, 
Golden birch, crimson sumac.
Three years from cutting.
I think of Christmas.

I am a Jew, but the thought was instant 
How could it not?
Were this the Bible would I have shared
Paul’s experience?

I heard my name.
Beyond that pine trills Hunter Brook.
I looked.
Come here.
Listen. 
Stroll along. 
Listen.

Stones there once not there not now.
Small steps.
Balancing.
I never walked with my arms out
To my sides
Before. 

Rocks convert
Pools deepen
Lanes clog with leaves
The words change.
Listen.
It’s what I have to say.

Sit this rock 
Slippery with moss.
Water lapping.
Cut banks and overhangs. 
Fractured rocks.
Tossed and twisted limbs. 

No Paul
Or the book that started it all.

Now be still
And I was still.

When cold seeps in
I wander home
Having heard something 
I may hear again
When I dream.



October, 2019

FALL WOOD - october, 2019

October 6, 2019

                                  FALL WOOD

I don’t know how it happened, but it has happened. To us. We had nothing to do with it. Evolution has played a dirty trick on us sentient beings (the ones on two legs with opposable thumbs and a smattering of Neanderthal genes). She has reversed the natural order on a whim. When we’re young, time seems endless. It is endless. Was endless. What did we know? Now, someone please explain to me in detail the point of speeding it up as we grow older? You can’t. No point. Absolutely arbitrary. Mean spirited. But there it is. Time rockets by, like you’re always rushing through the subway station, up and down, people jigging, jogging, pushing for the train, rushing, running, and there it goes, a cannon ball just out of sprint range. You’ve been butt-ended, but, you know, keep on keepin’ on ‘cause y’gotta get there, right? That’s how fast time seems to go when you know better. Wasn’t it just April? Where have I been? What the hell just happened? Did I cross the finish line? I won? Really?

That’s what it feels like.

Hunting season was what started all this because suddenly it’s October and the firebushes are bright red. The trees aren’t all bare, but soon to be and bare enough to catch sight of the creatures that live here with us, their terms, not ours. I haven’t seen the bear lately, although enough sign tells me he’s back there, but dozens of wild turkey, mostly small flocks and some singles, with those tiny heads and long, stringy beards, and a few mornings ago, an eight-point buck, a six pointer, and a large spike were eating granny apples under the tree out back our house, not thirty yards, mystical creatures with racks grown graceful, even whimsical, yet with surprising heft. Rut was still a few days away. Wind whispered over the leaves. Some skittered. That sight! Imagine holding a rock from another solar system in your hands. Imagine swimming in the open sea with a white whale. Imagine watching the one you love undress in moonlight.