Silent in Summer's Passing

It’s quiet here on the lake, now, late in autumn,

colors past their prime and fallen, and tree limbs laid bare.

The docks have all been pulled onto the shore

and the boats are gone, stowed away from the winter’s

ice and snow, left to idle away the dormant months ahead.

All is quiet, now, but for the eerie sound of a few loons

reluctant to leave, their voices echoing in the early

evening darkness or just before the rising of the sun,

the morning’s light still faint; and a mist rises

from the lake, a mirror this day reflecting back the season,

cold and mute, a faint echo of summer turned to fall.

Their calling to each other, perhaps, bemoans their going,

a sadness at nature’s migration to the coast, leaving

and leaving behind them, alone, the gentle brush of waves

constant at the water’s edge, leaf strewn and brittle,

a shoreline gone silent in summer’s passing,

restless in the stillness of the winter months

that stretch before us, those who stay behind

in the quiet of the lake, reluctant, ourselves, perhaps,

staying behind to idle away the dormant months, reflecting,

alone and still and restless.

Where Are You Going?

“Where are you going?” she asks.

"Out," I say. "For a walk."

                                                 "But where?"

Perhaps just to the top of the hill,

the dog and I, a slow climb

up a rutted road, and rocky,

rock-strewn to trip me

in my mindless amble, wandering;

or to the point, around the cove,

to look back to where I am now,

leaving this place, look back at where

I’ve been, unaware, even, how I got here,

not sure if I’ll return or continue on;

or maybe to the trailhead, the East’s

long trail, and pausing there, wondering:

north to the mountain end? or south,

taking that first step, Georgia bound?

A journey I don’t have time to complete,

not today, but another day, perhaps;

“I don’t know, just going out.

For a walk. Come, take my hand.

Walk with me into tomorrow.”

The Apples

In autumn, the apples announce the season,

boldly proclaiming it in red and green and golden

fruit, sweet and tart, ripe, and fit for picking:

this our reward at the end of a long summer,

readying us for the winter months ahead.

Leaving

“All aboard,” I heard faintly

amid the hiss of steam and the smell

of smoke and ash filtering through

the still air of the station, standing here,

waiting to board a train that would never come,

would never leave the station again, for the last train

left years ago, decades, long before

the station master locked the door and left himself.

The rails have since rusted over, grown wild with brush

and weed, the windows cracked and broken,

and the paint is faded to dried board,

left now to vandals and to the young

seeking sanctuary there, out of sight, out of view,

finding it, perhaps, among the littered floor

and broken glass, their lives carved or burned,

graffiti’d, loud onto walls gone silent.

And I’m standing here, waiting, listening,

my ears straining to hear the decades gone by

and the stilled voice of a young man, ticket in hand,

a small satchel, anxious to leave

and not come back, as I once left,
seeking fame and fortune someplace else,
and coming home, now, no richer, really, than when I left.

And turning back, I find I’ve missed the train

to take me home to the place I lost in leaving;

that last train left years ago, decades,

leaving me behind, wiser, perhaps, and changed,

different, but listening, now, and wondering.

He Died Early

He died early, too early for one so young, they’d said,

long before seatbelts had laws to keep us secure,

suspend us upside down in rolling over,

bruised, perhaps, and banged up

and broken, but living, still -

that all came later, too late for him –

and they drove all night, leaving in darkness

to arrive just as the sun rose on the new day,

to comfort their grieving family needing them,

even as they needed comfort themselves, trying to stay strong

through their tears, for them, for each other.

That night his room was shut against his dying, the door

pulled to and latched, though not locked, just shut

and they left it that way, fearing to enter,

not sure of what nor why, but keeping it shut in,

that eerie quiet that accompanies death, the quietude of absence.

They slept that night holding each other tight

in the twin bed that had been hers for the years

before one another, before him even, holding each other,

shutting out their fears behind the door to his room,

the room next to the one where they huddled,

both rooms shrouded in silence but for their tears falling,

tears released now in their weakness, away from family

for whom they have remained strong, denying their own grief.

And in the morning, their eyes bleary and heavy

with restless sleep and the long day ahead, bucked up

and brave, they emerged, the doors wide open, theirs and his.

Neither admits to a nocturnal journey, nor a simple walk

in their sleeplessness, neither noting the other’s leaving,

the click of a door opening or the creak of hinges, long unused,

swinging back, not even the groan of shifting floorboards

as if someone has walked across them, as they have for years,

for as long as she can remember from her childhood, knowing,

but not acknowledging when their parents checked on them

or giving away their sneaking in, caught and in trouble,

but not this night, no squeak, no groan, no presence,

but the open doors, doors shut tight, shutting out their fears.

And for many years, years passing after the funeral,

their grief turned to quiet resignation of life and death,

no one, even the young taken too early exempt from this,

for these many years they wondered, wondering still,

who had opened the doors, theirs and his, undetected,

checking on them in their grief and restless sleep,

one last moment, “it’s ok now.” For there was,

somehow, a comfort there, a comfort unexplained

by that open door, a brief moment of sorrow removed,

a knowing, a sensing, a still voice, soft, unheard.

Do the dead, perhaps, come home, then, one more time

before leaving, if leave they must, come home one last time,

to bid farewell, to leave us alone in our grief,

our grief too much in our attempt to stay strong?

Or do they come home to remember, to remember home

and who they are, what they are leaving behind and who,

those memories that even death cannot take, to soften

what comes next, that last leaving, leaving us behind,

death but a place of memories brought to life, remembering?