for Steve, always

Notice 
how the gold leaves spin
and the sky opens its black branches.

If I could hold
November’s extravagant loss 
that ushers forth 
the earth’s white meadows
I could arrive at the nexus
of ardor and faith.

Not long ago
we would have thought
that only the weather had turned
and brushed up our collars,
but now we turn into it.

We walk a path
crusted in ice,
the air indivisible
from wind and shadow.

Snow extinguishes
the sparrow’s brief song.
A fine dust flecks our faces,
the apples disappear. 
 

The Bells of Autumn

I entered late autumn
To receive the last note
You offered as praise.

My body climbed
One gold rung at a time
And the bells rang.

I witnessed the lilacs
Stalled in ice,
Knocking against the cold,
And asked for nothing.

You gathered red leaves
Then slipped upon a freezing field.
When you glanced back
You missed the place 
Where the seed
Had settled. 

How unlikely
Wind could damage faith.
How unlikely winter’s benediction.
 

To The Place Without Names

Their bodies floated on the wreckage of love, 
they thought it a river to the sea.

She took his hand and placed it on her breast
while her mind formed around ideas

greater than the two of them - - 
perfection and suffering, as he continued 

the work she had begun.
Light dwindled to a dot behind the moon

and the leaves fled.  Words let go
like reckless and new and were never retrieved. 

They glided over boulders and fallen trees.
Grief carried them to the juncture of wind and stream. 

Salt sharpened the air, a brief repose. The shoreline glistened, 
then passed.  Nothing sustains beauty.