Autumn

The moving skies, big, bound,
Bend round circles vast,
Stirring bold ghosts of the brain
Back to memory of harvest. 

Strong autumn gusts
Press proud palms to hill-tops,
Breaks through quickened leaves
With rich scatter of color,
Rich fire and fragrance 
Lifting the soil into song. 

When clouds are burst
Be said to weep or howl
Some transcendence down upon us?
As dry blades of grass sweep into rivers
In some majesty of yore? 

The shifting sun and shadow
Drops rain on silent green growth
Against red brick walls.
Still, solemn measure
Of mist laden corners.
You can feel it there in the shadow,
Trembling, poised
On the edge of cold air,
Bruised and Silent.

Big high tides of fast gray skies above.
And when the leaves are blowing 
Down old familiar street,
Catching forms are suffused with immensities, 
Vertical in origin,
And funnel down to us like apples;
Rips open the eternal vaults
And blows us back to Garden. 

New winds grab
Hair and hips and lungs.
Close trees shelter quiet homes
And tuck skeletons bravely away
In autumn back yards. 

And whose blood lives in those green bushes?
That knows small gatherings and sweet harvests?
As hidden bird is known by voice alone.
And warm blankets of sunlight, 
As over fertile mid-western valleys
Where the vines are over ripe,
Yearning for gentle slopes and wide grassy hills.

The hungry clouds want more earth.
In the shadow of a ruby sunset
The rag-man stumbles off  
to the cold weather end
Of graveyards and hurt trees,
Almost as recollection
Of cold waters as song,
And night-lit streets as measure.