A Thousand Miles
A tiny chill
the flowers know
Orioles have left
flying singly at night
a thousand miles
south
Sunflowers settle
facing east
some heads now bowing
make seed squirrels
fatten on their oil
Other blooms
remain upright
Males flew ahead
Their mates linger
basking in the last heat
Now—bright birds
your oriole blaze
has flown
a tender grief remains
'til spring
I would say my feeling at summer's turn to fall is more melancholy than grief. Coming from New England, fall brought the most joyous expression of color in the turning of the leaves. To me, then, it was exhilarating through all the senses: smell, touch, sight, the rustle, spiritual lifting. I don't have that total immersion here in Utah, but a gradual sense of being isolated in a tiny condo in a large world. Therefore, the melancholy.
so glad new poems emerge even as birds fly to their winter home...it's like breathing.