On a bright day all the drowned colors of the waning summer
have mulled down like cider and cinnamon
and what was "cool" in August has changed, like a slinky
walking down stairs
into "chill"
The nights fill my lungs like an offshore breeze fills canvas,
like a mambo beat fills that critical eighth of a second
which makes or breaks an evening, a lifetime in a glass of wine
a loaf of bread
and the mindless fecundity of July has given way to carefully
loving everything you've got (since who knows when there'll be more?
the winter might not ever end, and we'd be left
beneath our flannels, naked and rosy, until Ragnarok
woke us with an embarrassed apocalyptic throat-clearing)
There's room in this world for grasshoppers and ants alike,
for dancing and prudence, for stormy nights and blazing days
room enough, to be sure
but perhaps not all at once
let the seasons rain down on me like gumballs from a chute,
one by
one by
one
and let me chew on each until its savor pales,
until March's charms give way to August's torpor
and October's crisp secedes and leads us to January's wake-up call
but for today, I will carry off a block of sunlight in my bag and breathe
all the while watching the trees near Porter Square
even urban trees have their surprises
Sat Oct 7 12:22