© 2016 Steve King
All rights reserved
i
We walked an autumn much in
ease,
beneath the careless beeches,
kicked their
discard fruits along the
narrow hillside path,
and followed ‘til the lake
rose up to meet us
through the trees.
And our
silence pleased us so.
We passed the ancient
fieldstone gate,
imagining some world that
once had been;
all shadow and the hiss of
falling leaves,
old lilac boughs in twilight
nodding slow.
Caring little then for other
things—
enough to feel the sunset at
our backs,
to circle ‘round along a
vanished path,
and brush our hands by happy
circumstance.
No, nothing left to wonder
of,
a surety to spare;
and we’d return by starlight
if we could.
ii
You laughed aloud when,
in a moment that remains
all out of sense and time,
you described the fallen
orchard grove
embracing its old earth.
I said you’d writ a poem
there.
You fled the instant,
said you needed song instead;
but clamorous spirits
gathered to the air,
intoning in another sort,
and only cold winds moved to
answer you.
iii
We hurried, but the shades
of every autumn caught us up.
We held ourselves within a
shield of vines,
listening for winds to end
as well I knew each moment
must.
I strained for every
incomplete echo,
the thread of any harmony at
all,
a chorus to the gabble of disjoining
thoughts
in search of quieter comfort.
I knew that shadows never
could complete,
nor ever would the riddling
wind,
become that song for you.
I shivered only when I saw
your eyes,
still blue in fallen
moonlight,
and white as a new snow,
as distant from all wanting
as yesterday’s desire.
You told me any pathway back
would do.
iv
Were I to hold a moment long
in mind
it would be something like an
autumn walk,
the sunlight and the shadow
all as one.
Before a thousand sunrises
had shaken us from dreams.
Before the cast of season’s
end
could color all we’d seen.
Before the dark ecliptic track
had run to course
and left our days undone.
A new poem for the Poetry
Pantry
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