night rain
rearranging leaves
and dreams –
crickets no longer
chatter in my hair
retracting for a time

owls

October owls
flirting in moonlight
sleep laid aside
this empty bed
listening

mourning doves sip
from last night's rain –
shape of dawn
making something
out of nothing

entering the earth
always on my knees –
October breeze my hymn
woodsmoke rising
from my throat

what the lake makes
of the moon –
wounded turtles
slip into shimmers
and shooting stars

Orion
upside down –
even the past
has not past

first leaves
fall to mingle
with summer's end making
room for one more star
and then many

centered

drifting boat
not coming not going
a solitary heron wading
skeins of morning
silk

dirt roads

red-bellied woodpecker
clinging above the dirt road
and I
deeply in love
with lonesome pathways

misted morn
fold on fold afloat
under white pine –
these crickets
my autumn tinnitus

bird and song
tuning into place
and season –
I am calm
where pine
takes root

sunlight
stirring the dirt floor
my mushroom heart
here and gone
in a day

red bird
on an old pine –
I'm a passing cloud

Palmer Park

waterbugs
like fireworks
embellish creek water
and maple seeds
as twins spinning
this unlimited intimacy
this Eucharist of awareness
falling apart
in the mouth

geese leaving
the crook of a knee
off kilter —
under my breath
your name
this coal-black night

bats and fireflies
conduct summer's last
movement –
acorns punctuate
weary ground
and lake-smells grow faint

a knowing part hangs on
even as it all turns
calico –
chicory waves goodbye
my saving
grace

tongue tied
wedges of geese
leaving –
I wade rills
hugging the bend
not far from home now

homecoming

crickets and cicadas
sing behind weighty suns
summer's Grey Goose
on the rocks
a wistful twist
watching birds leave
for some place
better

growing thin

Sunday's costume
worn to bury the week
heft of hymns
turning to stone

in Vesper times, a begging –
please allow me
to grow faint
like remnants of rain

fading daisies –
this compass of departing
summer – darkness entering
by degrees

chicory and black-eyed Susans
brushing shins
and greening acorns
already letting go

what ransom paid
for October –
what permanence slips
like ballroom masks

time to inter
power
and company keep
of no one

born again

swimming
in places thin
as reeds –

I am new
in summer's
retreat

born again
into burning
realms

heart of me
breaking
as morn