Red And Gold
I.
Under my feet bright bodies
of leaves, mast from the oak, crunch
of all the discards of summer, fire's coming
crackle; percussion accompaniment
to sweet smoke of raked heaps burning
where you stand smiling,
match in hand.
II.
Peridot green under amethyst clouds
the after-storm sun bent the grass back
with sudden heat, as you bent my bones
with one touch, onyx eyes
closing on summer's fire
while the last light left brushed the waterfall's
singing to red steam.
III.
Around my skin a white pelt of
frozen water, my remembering numbing as wind,
howling hard as a cast-out wolf ten states
from its pack, too old to fight
too full not to cry,
under a sharp sickle moon
that sees nothing at all.
IV.
Rolling wheels on warm red dirt
over the creek, around the bends where
trees hide the climb, mask the descent,
shaking their gravid buds in the rage of air
pushing me, pulling me,
past the point where words
could make me stop.
V.
Every season dies around me,
every leaf, every white-muzzled wolf
in my wilderness, each golden October
burning red under the match
til nothing is left but the journey
I reverse night
after night in my sleep.
October 2021
posted for Meet the Bar: Cadralor plus Nobel
Images: Autumn Leaves, Lake George, NY, 1924 ©Georgia O'Keefe Fair Use
Red Dirt Road After Spring Rain, author unknown, via internet. Fair Use
.jpg)
