A Loom In The Dark

Turn in Fall

Goldenrod rules the hills

of Northumberland,

mauve tassels tint the fields,

raving in a unison

of sway. Along the stone backroads

Dansey fences lean,

Monarchs crowning simple leaves—

wild-carrot and chicory,

wing to wing, all distances

rolled between them.

A fruiting rowan forks the water

where the stream dips,

one branch split off from another,

one root thirsting, reaching

further. The stream runs back together

after, finds the river.

The corn is husked, ground and eaten,

wings are dust and wind,

Autumn’s rusty kingdom comes

upon Northumberland.

Orison

Flaw me

perfectly

unpedestal

the tome

give me

a poem

sublimate

the base

flesh out

the bone

unhone

earth

heaven

blemish

free

make down

give up

its meaning

to me

Boreas

I skirt the rust of rivers

to tempt a heron wing,

smooth a limestone bluff

and hush a bristling reed.

I pluck the nests of bracken,

long red strands and string,

scrape a song of refuse

from shards of gutter glass.

I sleight-of-hand a smoke

turning, thinner gone.

I blow your frail skin, gentle

in the whispered sun.

I still the scrolling cirrus,

lap onyx into green,

move a silence strangely

between the crimson leaves—