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D.R. Goodman Page 2 Autumn in a Place Without Winter A subtle change has chipped the edge of things:
this quiet chill on pale blue cloud-streaked days;
the fog a harder shade of flinty gray.
A robin haunts the yard, but doesn’t sing.
Dark berries fatten on their fronds again,
blood-red against the snow that never comes,
but somehow fills a presence in our bones:
white snows of memory. The first real rain
brings down a hail of leaves as green as spring
that bruise and darken on the asphalt drive.
You sweep the sodden deck, old shaker broom
worn jagged by the work. The season brings
no clarity, but this: we’re here, alive,
aswirl in stir and stillness, light and gloom.
Out Late in Summer A glowing mist illuminates the street,
or so it seems, so magical the light
of street lamps on an August night. Not quite
thirteen, set loose, the freedom of bare feet
on pavement, buzzing insects, rare delight
of empty lanes, abandoned schoolyard, heat
and dark, forbidden smoke. Like cats, we meet,
assemble in the shadows, silent, slight
and furtive, keeping distance. But the thrill
of new connection flutters like the great,
bright Luna moth that flaps along the edge
of vision, brilliant, spinning in the thrall
of an imagined moon, quick like the heart
of someone poised for flight, perched on the verge.
All
poems are selected by Andrena Zawinski
with permission
from D. R. Goodman's Greed,
A Confession
© Copyright, 2015,
D.R. Goodman. |