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
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