(Along SR 917)

Another
comes down,
whirling whirling brown;
flits across my windshield
and leaps over the roof;
flitting flitting brown to the ground;
dancing, then, dancing brown down the road,
resting, till swept up, away, astray (autumn’s prey)
by the next lonely car that comes this winding way.
And the westering sun glorifies a golden maple,
where rambling cows punctuate gentle green hills.
A field where corn still stands
glitters gold, spears and shields,
while sumac’s tongues-of-fire shishkebobs
salute the splendor’s
brief brief
stay.

(November 14, 1988)

The
aged sun
drops below sight.
Wearied by the journey,
but shedding glory in farewell,
he colors copper the lonely hillside
(strewn pennies, carpeted thick: autumn’s spare change),
colors with cold beauty summer woods couldn’t bear.
Shy halfmoon, she veils herself with silk-sack,
while he lectrifies those red littlelights
clustered on the dogwood’s fingertips,
a gentle shining farewell,
whispering whispering instant:
the winter’s
near.

(Along SR 917)

Rounding
the bend
where fog wraiths
drift across the road:
summer-sun-scorched rushes group starkly roadside
under the blear-eye smoke-glassed autumn sun;
but spiders’ webs sparkle among the timothy,
and goldenwaves of goldenrod shimmer of a self-light.
A silo stands, ancient, crown caving in,
wreathed below by ranks of staghorns
drooping a few red leaves.
And there—but no...
veiled from view,
moisty morning
sight.

Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse p. 400
ed. D. H. S. Nicholson and A. H. E. Lee