The Familiar New

At the flea market, I'm drawn to lavender, honey, and basins. Can a bowl be any more magnificent than when holding water? My hands hover over hundreds of things I've never touched. How familiar the new can be! Storied and almost forgotten. A box of prisms in all sizes, $1 each; like I need another reminder of something loved at a distance.

Today's sky sears September into the part of presence I always want to know. Pine needles shimmer with fire and dew. Leaf smoke laces the curling gaps between muted hydrangea and rusting mums. I devour fall and use both hands to waft it all into the center of the coil. Give me September and October wrapped in aubergine, a side of butternut squash soup and sourdough bread . . . it would be more than enough.

So many spiders these days. They write with me from the corners of single paned windows and undisturbed intersections of light. These lines are spun as poetic currency for posterity's coffers. Yet they begin as something else entirely. I've yet to give them over in the raw.

Thoughts let me down. Maybe so do words. Another way remains.  Untouched intention reaching over my familiar new.