The Fall without Apples [Poem on 8-26-13]

 

I don’t know enough yet.

 

“Every year the air balloons bring me back,”

she said.

“Whether I intend to or not.”

 

This year one more flew among the

paint-by-number-skies.

Exiting: she did so in the brightest fashion.

 

I am always writing how I am flourishing

with the flowers growing-

the breeze whistling through the trees’ leaves.

I am always feeling alive.

 

Yesterday I went home

All the trees were cut

Some were preparing apples for the fall.

 

When your topsoil is removed-bartered away

Only a barren a hole in the horizon can welcome you home.

A crow perches on the remaining tree behind me.

The skin surrounding my eyelids is beginning to wrinkle.

 

The only birth of fall: a monarch

Lays crippled to the path in front of me.

It’s august and in her eagerness of youth she came too soon.

 

How does one elevate but wait before flying away?

 

I need to hold you before tomorrow.

 

My fingers are beginning to shake.