Walking Through Autumn Poem by Daniel Brick

September

Powerlines along my path bristled
with electric fire, scorching
the raised brow of September'

Just past a green patch of sumac,
I found my neighbor Terence, waiting,
letting his dog wander the meadow.

We spent a few minutes
bent over thew meadow flowers
looking for the bergamot plant.

He straightened first.
'We can't see it, but we know
it's here. Even the dog smells it.'

'Yes, ' I said, still searching.
'Smelling it is reward enough, '
and I realized it was time to part.

I ambled east, further into
the treeless meadow. His gold dog
led him west toward a grove of aspen.

No doubt he too walked as slowly
as this summer was becoming autumn.
The scarecrows were all fast asleep.

A lone hawk glided far above
the birds of passage. I imagined
an evening drinking Earl Grey tea,

and writing again those long letters
I once called 'massive missives'
before sleeping as deeply as the scarecrows.

October

Small groups of Canadian geese,
five of them, crossed the cloudy sky.
Their honking raised my eyes
from earth to heaven, and I stopped
raking to watch them disappear
into thick clouds, no longer winged things
but just dots, like crooked ellipses,
sinking into the depths of heavy paper,
whatever message they were spelling
by their flight, smudged, then erased,
lost in whiteness....

November

The bronze path through the woods
crunches under our shoes. Hard earth
holds steady. The delicate higher branches
of a leaning aspen map another way out.
The air, sliced by flights of bees,
bleeds summer warmth over this November day.

Ages ago, you stopped counting our steps.
We walk. side by side, in an 'andante' rhythm,
as if we have nothing else to hope for.
The smoky scents of autumn cannot be denied.
We breathe them as we climb a steep slope
of leafless trees. Breathless at the top,

we keep moving, as certain of reaching
our true home as the geese winging overhead.

December

The sunroom is without light. You slouch
in a big chair, wrapped in a dark blue blanket.
Your brown eyes are the brightest spots
to be seen, and the many-colored glow
of the television provides the only window
into the outside world. It is the middle
of the evening...

Scraps of paper litter the floor. A few pages
float about, refusing to land, unwilling
to lie forgotten. In my library, a single bulb
illuminates a volume of Goethe. I am turning
the pages slowly, and it is enough. Pelleas
is already asleep, his head tucked loosely
under his cowl. Just beyond this white wall

in front of me, clouds fold into each other,
and a deluge of snow is poised to fall all winter long.