Poetry provided a lamp

October (Aboveground)

October (Aboveground)


The cold air returns 
and a mind
of summer subsides.

*

This racket 
of thought, a loop
of language inflamed, 

replaced by the sound 
of dead leaves—
maple leaves

red as an emergency—
in a spiral
whisking pavement. 

*

The room becomes 
a prism of sun 
in late afternoon; 

slit blinds 
sifting shadow. 
A gift—

to live in a world of light 
after a decade spent 
underground.

*

A decade spent
underground

in perpetual dusk. 
Poetry provided the lamp 

by which to read 
the season’s
bleed-through

and imagine 
a sense of place. 

*

It’s not the color
of the leaves 
but the shape 
the light takes 
around them.

*

In and out of time
the poem
appears before you.

Yellow leaves attached 
to power lines reflected 
in a gray puddle.

*

This is company, 
the rattle 
of sporadic rain

blooming through 
a new apartment 

and the words
that move 
from mind to tongue—

the words that arrive 
as inflections of light—

and sing my body alive.