Happy Halloween!

and now, for those of us who are amused by haints, All Saints/Souls Days which follow All Hallowed Eve.

starting over

you need a story sometimes
to live with yourself

a sacred narrative with blurred lines

we do not always need to see clearly
what we have done and what we have
failed to do

on the far horizon, it may not matter, anyway

and after all, it's your story

ghinko leaves lay

like bright yellow fans

 in the dimming of the day

We Live a Small Life

We live a small life on the Loran blacktop,
elegant in its simplicity,
quietly proportioned.
You can hear the corn grow;
waves of fireflies rise from the fields
in an ancient dance of cold fire.

Red-tailed hawks patrol the Plum River
basin; they ride thermals and roost,
dignified, in the cottonwood
at the bottom of the drive.

In Autumn, the breeze rustles the cornstalks,
whispering the secret of the first frost.
Geese, replete with gleanings,
vee west to the big river, the Mississippi.

Winter will come to us too soon.
But first, the blazing Autumn,
the smoke of bonfires a veil across the valley,
hoarfrost delicately laced in the mornings;
the garden is gone.

But first, the Harvest moon will rise fat and orange
over the hills, the tracery of bare trees against
the night.

There will be that moment yet, that one moment
when the earth is in perfect balance
waiting to die.