ON MICHAELMAS (with a phrase from Rilke) Landscape unsheathed from summer’s haze, a place both known and unknown as late September flares— a slow flame writhing from the outside in. Spectral yellows and the first red flush sparking across the maples. I walk to remain watchful of the changes— what moves through from the outside in. Lord, it is time to succumb to the new season, to imagine it speaks in the space where I spoke before— the voice grown ragged, thinned into a syllable. I walk and I notice the dark and disjointed alleyways in this sinking canal town lit by leaf-patterns sparked against gray drizzle. Lord, it is time: summer was too long, and the new season disorients me into a new frequency. I walk and watch as winter’s bare altar is prepared.
I like this very much Joseph. Thank you.
Thank you for a fall poem!