A New Day
—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA
SONG OF THE PROMISED RAIN
Wind is a soothsayer,
whistling blue lines of sky between cloud,
script no mailman delivers:
news adventurous, benevolent, financial
reports of the season: dividends
of leaves. Leaves golden and falling,
confetti under foot and tires.
Headlights sparkle when it rains,
dead leaves collect in a dry creekbed
waiting for rain, its maelstrom
of the old year’s litter. Dead twigs
and branches caught
in stormwash above the culvert,
everything the wind touches, every tiding
it delivers—will it rain?—its infallible
truth song: a new November day.
Black Cats
MYSTERIES AND SHADOWS
At the end of the road are partings of light
through blackberry tangle, trees over-leaning
chipseal eroding into creekbed. A blacker shade,
the cats like bramble-shadows, cats of no color
but the night. Moon-gold eyes like moon
mocking at its full, a moon-faced child skulking
roadside, crouching to consort with cats
who slink the shoulder. Feral cats, feeding
on shadow that flits bird-winged in the brush.
Seven cats, all black. A midnight family.
And a single tabby, fur striped silver-gray
of gloaming. Night on soundless paws. My dog
bristles, I turn him aside. We’ll take another
path that cuts through vacant field faded golden,
a year’s dead grass that hisses as we pass.
Autumn Leaves
APPLE OUTSKIRTS
from the Institute of Forest Genetics
The drifting leaves cannot contain their fall.
A squirrel skitters boughs green to amber-gold;
can she ever hoard enough? Seasons call
on winds of change till next year’s leaves unfold.
Our dogs go questing
rain-fresh scents, fox scat, a pungent
mat of rot. Farther afield, the canyon drops
to river washing dust away.
Visitors fill their trunks with harvest, drive
back roads beneath the autumn-golding trees
and there’s a song of leaf-blowers and saws.
The drifting leaves cannot contain their fall.
Through Windows of Time
NOVEMBER GHOSTS
Crunch of footsteps up the alley,
echoes of passing feet. Dead leaves blown
onto cobbles like ghosts of downtown,
invisible but binding landmarks
of our history. What used to be the haunt
of poets—bookstore, an open shaft
in the floor, relic of a Gold Rush mine,
a plastic skeleton lifting a folio
in his bone-fingers, flutter of word-
wings—the shaft’s floored over now
for another kind of shopping.
Bookstores fail when the living
don’t buy books. This town is full
of ghosts. The old bookstore
is one of them.
Drum Dance
RECALLING THE DANCE
(a haiku sonnet)
kimono’d ladies
float white to the pavilion—
a flute, the great drum
no wind to lift kites
in the field, hardly a breeze
in keyaki tree
birdsong then silence—
silk moth white from its cocoon
on mulberry leaf
stately seed-wing dance,
a white-sleeve flight of muscles
to the pulse of drum
a silkworm heavenly bug
wakes as silken butterfly
Wild Plum
CAUGHT IN THE CAMERA
The old film camera sold for a song—
no, a shutter-fragment of dawn.
That old camera forever hungry for light.
A stranger owns its memories now—
a landscape seen once in fever,
or in deep snow. The ASA all wrong
for the light. A candle burning dark
about itself, images glimpsed
when the camera had no film, creating
its own myth, its private light. Wild-
plum princess in trance of dancing under
black arches. Loveliest photos never taken.
Autumn Leaves
Today’s LittleNip:
AUTUMN KATAUTAS
—Taylor Graham
What does summer say?
Willow leaves will spill like wine
at last into golden fields.
Why does the breeze blow?
Each leaf twirls on slender stem
to dance in the sunset flame.
Where does the day go?
Flammable as old papers,
the leaves, the veins in our hands.
Can you read the script?
Ancient and brittle as leaves
from the tree, brilliant in fall.
What news at evening?
The song is brief as haiku,
long as a lover’s whisper.
________________
Our thanks to Taylor Graham for her fine poems and snapshots of autumn in Northern California! Taylor’s “Apple Outskirts” is in the dorsimbra form; see poetscollective.org/poetryforms/dorsimbra/. For info about the haiku sonnet, go to www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/haiku-sonnet-poetic-form/.
San Francisco’s Robert Cesaretti reminds us that Ginosko Literary Journal is always looking for submissions. See ginosko.submittable.com/submit for guidelines and for a link to the journal itself.
Tonight the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis will present An Evening with Writer/Actor Peter Coyote, 8pm. Also on Thursday night, Winters Out Loud Poetry Open Mic meets at 7pm (see the Poetry in Davis Facebook page for some photos), and Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe meets in Sacramento with features and open mic, 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa
November Leaves
—Anonymous Photo
Celebrate the poetry that is change!
Celebrate the poetry that is change!
Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.
