The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets - The Poet's Press

It’s just the month: November lies.
October always tells the truth.
You could no more fake
the shedding of leaves
than simulate a pulse in stone.
Only the living fall in love,
only the living cry for joy,
only the living relinquish that month
in red and yellow shuddering!
The pines,
those steeple-capped Puritans,
what price their ever-green?
Scrooge trees, they hoard their summers,
withhold their foliage,
refuse to give the frost his due.
Ah, they are prudent,
Scotch pine and wily cedar,
touch-me-not fir and hemlock.
They will live to a ripe old age
(if you can call that living).
Love! Burn! Sing! Crumble!
Dance! Wind! Fall! Tumble!
Into the wind-blown pyramid of leaves!
Spin in a whirling dust-devil waltz!
Leaf-pile! Treetops! Tramping on clouds!
Weightless, flying, red-caped October!
THE FENCE
Town fathers, what have you done?
Last night I returned
(I vowed — I made the lake a promise)
intending to tramp the lane of maples,
read with my palms the weary tombstones,
feast with my eyes the clouded lake,
lean with a sigh on founder’s headstone,
chatter my verses to turtles and fish,
trace with my pen the day lily runes,
the wild grape alphabet,
the anagram of fallen branches,
all in a carpet of mottled leaves.
The mute trees were all assembled.
The stones — a little more helterskelter
than before,
but more or less intact — still greeted me
as ever with their Braille assertions.
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