Anxieties and doubts
banished with the breeze.
Afternoon sun glints
from rainstorm residuals.
Crystalline golds and crimsons
paint the landscape.
Sharp crags jut wrinkled, rugged,
define the east edge of the valley,
a favorite view in the deep
contrast of summer.
But in brilliant autumn hues,
hills to our west roll
far more glorious.
Sunlight-sliced lingering gray
reveals treasure,
glistening golden and ruby.
Muted, luminescent streams
melt the mist,
as if smeared by God,
like an angry child maims
her finger painting.
I pick my way through clutches
of wet grass, slick mud,
until the highway is too close
to pretend its roar
is the distant river rushing.
Hawk screech rises
above steadfast oaks.
Red Tails, nearly extinct,
now number half dozens
every few miles up this valley,
and the valley beyond.
My spirit lifts on his wings
and dances
to the opus in my heart.
Pungent smell of rot
drifts,
blown from long levees
of skins, stems, seeds.
Tons of harvest corpses
keep one vineyard from flowing
to the next.
Gaze north
over rich amber carpets
stained with reluctant green.
Veterans Home,
white stone walls
rise out of the mist,
like Halloween ghosts.
Wet leaves squish,
walnuts crunch beneath feet.
How many will sink
into ebony mud,
winter beneath cold earth,
struggle to become Spring saplings?
Four-footed friend
accelerates to a streak,
splashes through shallow puddles
that will widen with winter,
into homes for Spring tadpoles.
Enthusiastically she lands,
two muddy paws on jeans,
bringing the earth I love that much closer.
She is happy as I to be here.
Our spirits crackle, rival the electricity in the cold, moist air.
We return to the house. She curls
before orange-black embers.
I finish my book.
© 2005