On an Autumn Day She Rose and Left

On an autumn day, late in the season,

the colors faded and fallen, bare limbs

raked clear the clouds to let the sun through,

and she rose and left, unseen in her going.

Her morning table, arranged by her bedtime habit

of setting it out, was ready for him, for his day,

but the plate was long empty, no bacon frying or coffee perked,

no odor of breakfast lingering; not even the juice glass

was in its place, chilled and waiting in the icebox.

Her apron, worn thin through decades of breakfasts

and early morning risings, now hung behind the door,

its long strings dangling behind a frayed hem,

an apron starkly lit by the morning light’s

illumination, yet shadowless and flat, a cardboard cutout

dark and silent in this empty house this autumn day.

Missing, though, was the great coat she wore, gray wool,

and practical, sensible for the changing weather

grown cold and raw, and we found her footprints,

small and faint, slow steps leading to the pond

beyond the house, reed-hidden among the cat-tails, tall

and bent, spent, white filaments, like hair, blown and clinging,

and the scarf she wore, too we found, red and gold,

delicate, draped over a low branch, cracked, now, and old,

barren in this late autumn season, to be cut and burned

in the winter months ahead in our need for warmth,

the cold of solitude and loneliness too much to bear.

River-bound

Born in a river-town, we grow up

watching the river flow, free and endless,

sea-ward through the narrows and channels of our lives,

constantly moving, and away to the ocean and other shores,

places we can only imagine as possibility or fantasy,

asleep here on her banks, as we are, restless and watching;

but this river runs through us, too, calls us

with a yearning that we can feel deep within us,

hat gnaws at our very being, churning, a temptation

to rise up and go, follow the currents and eddies of our hearts

swelled now by that river flowing through us, free and endless,

this river that has been our lives lingering here, river-bound,

a siren’s call – perhaps - and yet we leave, for we must,

we sailors, restless and tired of watching,

sea-ward through the narrows and channels of our lives;

and the river-town keeps watch from the cupolas,

the widows’ watch, waiting for us to return, patient,

the charmer’s spell broken and sending us back,

sending us home to our lovers’ arms that take us in,

and returning home, full circle, back to our birth-right,

we feel again the longing, like Ulysses, the pull

of the river coursing through us, free and endless, sea-ward,

and restless still, held back by the course of the tides

that are our lives, lives lived, river-bound, in a river-town.

Summers End

Here in our little town, the summer folk are leaving,

the long weekend behind us, an end and an exodus,

returning to their real lives someplace else, away

to places they call home, their camps now closed and shuttered,

docks and boats safely stored for the coming winter.

But our lives continue here, autumn lying ahead

in reds and orange; lighter shades of gold and green

embrace us now in the silence of their leaving,

a silence we turn inward toward ourselves,

another summer gone and our winters stretching ahead.

And the days shrink before us, days gone dark

before we are ready, spoiled as we were by this summer season,

rising and then settling again in darkness,

a darkness blown in on a breeze, slightly felt,

as we fortify ourselves, taking stock and laying in our needs.

Our needs are but a few, really, a red sunset over the lake,

a fire and friends to share our evening, talk

of the changes ahead and life itself, the warmth

of living here among the changing seasons,

the smell of burning leaves smoldering in the air;

and the barrenness of fall, stark against a fading sky,

the scent of snow to come, quilting our lives,

and the winter stars’ return, Orion’s belt and his great

stride marching across the blackness of a deep winter night,

carrying with him the promises of our lives lived here.

For we are blessed by these heavens above us,

by the seasons we share, nature’s cycle of birth

and growth and, yes, death, and in death, renewal,

a continuance of our lives shared with the summer folk

leaving, a reminder of the seasons of our own time,

the blessings of who we are and where we live.

Driving South

Driving down to visit my new grandson,

highway driving, mostly, on I-95 south,

cutting across New York’s Big Apple City,

with its glitz and glitter, and around the nation’s capital,

a city troubled by its own political aims,

a long drive fighting the weather and roads.

This long journey began not here, though, not today,

but at Banbury Cross, England under Elizabethan reign,

began with a tailor’s Puritan son, dissatisfied at home

and leaving for a new world, yet he was left behind in dying,

sending on, instead, his sons, who gave us our start,

our roots running deep, generations passed down to me

fighting the traffic stalled bumper to bumper,

crawling along, too slow, or flowing fast, speeding by,

them by me and me by them in my haste to arrive.

But this journey never ends, lasts forever, really,

goes onward into eternity, carrying with it

the genes of generations past, genes begun

at Banbury Cross, a tailor’s son, dissatisfied,

our lives, now, but an extension of his carried

down through the generations, just as I drive now

to visit my new grandson beginning his own journey,

heading into this same eternity to make his own way,

guided by us who have traveled before him

to bring ourselves to where we are now, here, today,

arriving and rooted deep, generations passing down to him,

and carrying us onward, onward into eternity.