Duties of Autumn

 

—Poetry by Kimberly Bolton, Jefferson City, MO

—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

 

HOPE CRACKING THROUGH THE DARK

It is the turning of the season.
Dark mornings mottled with fog.
The sky overhead sagging like a leaky roof,
dripping rain.
There are a few flowers still about,
relics of summer, struggling to remain
alive, in search of a sun that isn’t there.

This is the time of year when I was born,
sixty-three years earlier, when autumn
kindled the flame in the trees,
as it is doing now.
An ashy mist rises like smoke from
the strand of river threading through
this old town.
A fair distance away, the river bluffs,
like me, show their age.

I feel at ease with such ordinary solitude,
finding pleasure and comfort in this simple
contentment in a world saturated with
discomfort and discontent, chaos,
and the collapse of trust.
Still, I possess a humble wish for something
better than what we’ve got amid all
the anxieties of day-to-day living.
The hard glare of summer has mellowed
into the sepia-sweet light of autumn,
reviving my own modest hope that we
can do better than this.
A hope that cracks through the dark to
shine brighter than this poem can
make it.

 

 

 

 

DIASPORA

We are outside in the yard.
You are bent over at the waist gathering
walnuts that have fallen to ground,
tossing them into a trash bag to be hulled later
down at the collection point.
 
I am raking leaves.
The cool autumn air nips slightly
at my fingers and face,
such a blessing after the fevered heat
of summer broke only two weeks ago.

In an instant, geese fly overhead,
cutting a sharp swath across the sky,
vee after vee of them.
We stop what we are doing, looking skyward,
to watch the diaspora of the geese,
who announce their emigration with a loud,
raucous honking to ensure that we hear them
as they go.

Several minutes go by, then the sky is empty.
You return to the task at hand of picking up
the walnuts.
Yet, I am still feeling somewhat bereft at the exodus,
feeling empty like the sky, which is silly, really.
It wasn’t personal on the part of the geese,
but they’ve left me with an underlying want of my own.

 

 

 

 
 

 

SYNTHESIS

Autumn is fingering the leaves once again.
Summer is snuffed out abruptly, like the flame
of a candle, having done its part.

A spider on the porch rail tats her delicate web,
resolute in her natural propensity for domesticity
and apportioning her small contribution in the grand

scheme of things,
in as much as the fly caught in her web
executes its own minute function in the world.

It is an inconvenient truth that we live to die.
Synthesis of life and death expressed in the
full turn of the year, in the fullness of time.
Autumn merely doing its duty.

 

 

 

 

NOVEMBER

A cold wind frets about the house
now that all the leaves have gone,
and the trees point pruning, wrinkled
fingers at the sky as if they are in pain
and begging for relief.

November rudely pushed October out
with clouds as drab and drear
as a friar’s cloak.
The children have deserted their front
yards, taking the sun with them.

I am standing alone on my front porch,
shivering in a thick sweater,
while everyone else has in the neighborhood
has gone into hibernation.

I watch a temperamental wind pick
and worry at one brown leaf left behind
in the dead grass, before dragging it
across the lawn, then with a scornful
flick of its finger, send it careening
down the street, to disappear ‘round
the corner, out of sight.

 

 

 

 

UNAPPRECIATED

What mighty solitary prowess the river has!
An element only unto itself.
It does not know when or where it began,
nor when or where it will end,
though it has a destination.

The river cannot recall a time when it was not.
It surrenders to no one under the sun,
and is seduced unwittingly by the light
of the moon.

The wind is its constant companion,
its waters stirred by the vital thoughts of God.
The river has possession of infinitude,
in the way of bottomless seas,
and the endless dark universe above.

Yet, it goes unnoticed, as most of us do
in life, unappreciated and without applause.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.

―Stephen King, Salem's Lot

_____________________

Welcome back to Missouri Poet Kimberly Bolton this morning, with many thanks for her light-and-dark Autumnal poetry!

Tonight at 8pm in Sacramento, Joe Montoya’s Poetry Unplugged meets at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar, with featured readers plus open mic (sign-ups at 7:30pm). Also at 8pm in Sacramento, the monthly POHOP: Poetry and Hip Hop Night meets at the Guild Theater with its featured readers and open mic. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy
of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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