For the first day of autumn

plus an announcement

Dear friends and readers,

Below you’ll find a sequence of poems, some published, some unpublished, that I plucked from the vault to make an entirely new poem to mark the first day of fall. Yes, today is the autumnal equinox, and the best season of the year—in my simple opinion—begins.

I also wanted to let you know that I am offering poetry coaching throughout the fall.

I hope you’ve all had a terrific summer, despite all the darkness in the world. God is good, and we can count on that.

Now to the poetry.

A Garland for the First Day of Autumn


The dark, darker now—
turn inward
and autumn opens.


*


To know the season 

the depth of its cut
by touch—
a tone 

unfolding
an echo. 


*


Elision, the early dark

after summer’s
serrated glare

made seeing 
sting.


*


Red leaves edge 
a creek running
under a footbridge.

I haven’t moved this afternoon
 
reading a guardrail 
scarred with hieroglyphs.


*


Things and the names of things 
sinking into sepia, 

                        cold shadow 
stitched to cracked asphalt.


*


I don’t notice
until I’m surrounded,

my senses seized 
by the season.

Leaf-tides 
sidewind 
concrete; 

color clots 
sewer grates. 


*


Faint cricket chant
closer now 
as the room fills 
with darkness. 
And the walls fall 
in darkness. 
And the door, 
closed, appears 
to open in darkness. 
Bookcase submerged 
in darkness. 
Spines afloat 
in darkness. 
        Above the bed
a crucifix glints,
splintering the darkness.


*


Flash of dark orange 
rowing against wind:

monarch butterfly
rising from a whorl

of dead, dying flowers


*


An inner-silence
blots out nostalgia.

What was left 
unspent 
in autumn		
withers 
under ice.

Now the new life;
the holy order

of dawn breaking.