Ephemera

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

WAITING FOR FALL

Chitter of ground-squirrel taunting.
Rattle of dead leaves on the oleander.

My dog pads the deck sniffing crevices
for what’s alive.

Just a hint of breeze.
Summer hangs in tarnished gold of

leaves that will not fall.

But I saw a white dervish
on still air spiraling, inventing dance

of a dead season—a moth
in daylight silver-spin falling/rising

as on cobweb silk,
ephemera.

FOOTHILLS FALL

I walked our September woods looking
for fall colors. Deciduous-oak leaves olive-drab,
just a hint of gold tarnish. Late-summer scarlet’s
already faded from the poison oak. It’s an itchy 
in-between time of year. Live-oak green as ever,
wondering what’s special about the colors of fall.
And our valley oaks, how gracefully they lean
over the hillside without falling. 

THAT PLACE IN FALL

Beside the hedge, a car’s up on blocks with
dead pea-vine intertwining, frayed as old lace.
There’s a warped tree house in the blue oak,
a rope ladder climbing up to platforms
like bunks under bare limbs open to sky.
Who would broker such a place?
But garbage goes into the compost heap,
the walk has been swept clean on purpose,
and a well-fed tabby measures the front stoop
whiskers to tail, meditating on autumn sunlight
before afternoon slips the western tree-line.
It’s a place that still loves trees.

SPIDER HARVEST

Another fly’s caught in the spider’s web,
waiting for spider to take notice, or get
hungry. The new fly struggled against silk
but spider was busy with her lover, high
in the web, the legs of him. Then—small
spider, young and inexperienced I guess—
she cautiously approached the living fly;
touched with one soft foot-tap then another,
closer closer. The next I saw, both flies
were packaged together while, high
in the web, spider and her upside down
mate—was she mourning her dead? taking
comfort from him, with his torso long
gone? Mustn’t anthropomorphize.
This morning, she’s dealing with the flies. 

LOKI MONDAY

Our dog’s absorbed in morning duty,
Shepherd ear pressed to hardpan soil, she’s
listening to ground-squirrel burrows
in the sunburnt field. She’s done stirring
oak-leaf tea in the cake pan—water for frogs
in drought—splashing it on the deck.
Where’s she headed now? I call Loki! our
mischief shape-shifter, coyote to sweet-
eyed dog. But always on the move, fence-
runner. Her mind knows no boundaries.
Here she comes bounding, ready to rejoin
her humans inside our walls—until the next
thought passes.

THE MUSE OF LEAF-FALL

She reminds me of that old photo—years
ago—my dog standing at edge of pond among
oak woods in their falling colors, a meditational
veil of autumn light. Dog testing the air,
taking in scents of seasonal decay
as we searched for an old man missing,
never found. He simply disappeared in fading
of the year. That dog is dead now, and the Muse
of Fall calls her back as lost love does,
filling the empty spaces with elusive light.
The muse of nowhere, everywhere says, Write.

Today’s LittleNip:

PAST SUNSET
—Taylor Graham

Pink-orange on the horizon
gives up to monochrome, just light
enough to see five transitory geese skim
the tips of pines, these last moments
before pond-water gathers them
in folded wings.

______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Taylor Graham for this morning's glimpse of autumn and the colors to come!

—Anonymous Photo

Celebrate poetry!

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