October Sky

Another leaf poem, I'm afraid.  This one is for my uncle, whose funeral I just attended.

                                October Sky

                    Why do some leaves seem
                               to soar as they descend,
                                           as if tumbling and twirling
                                     with untethered joy
                                                     makes them float

                       while others simply fall?

                           Is it merely the way
                           the wind takes them,
                           or does something
                                 about their shapes
                                           give divinity
                                                    to their ends.

Gone with the Wind

This is a bit of a rant, I'm afraid, In the U.S., at least, it seems very few people rake leaves anymore. Instead, the autumnal calm is shattered by the roar of leaf blowers. This can be very disturbing when you're trying to write a poem, so I've attempted to make it an inspiration/occasion for a poem instead.
(The poem is supposed to be single spaced except for five stanza breaks, but blogspot and Word are not on speaking terms this morning, so some extra double-spacing is going on.)

         Gone with the Wind

What is as silent as a leaf-fall
Or as loud as a leaf blower?

I remember when the gentle rasp
And rustle of rake in dry leaves
Marked the beginning of autumn.
Now the growl and groan of handheld
Hurricanes herald the start of the fall.

I guess I don’t blame the hired crews
Who come through with their headphones
And backpacks. The sweat they save may be
Worth the deafening whir when they clear whole
Blocks of leaves, like high tech cowboys
Riding herd on a colorful cattle drive.
At least they are efficient, weekday workers.

But why must my noisy neighbor pick

A Sunday morning to use his macho machine

To chase the first few leaves around his yard.
As if he were Buck Rogers blasting space aliens
Landing from that evil golden oak?

In my mind, he fires one last blast
And the recoil lifts him jetpack-like
To the heavens or to the place where
All such snarling beasts belong.

 And I’m left here on Earth, wondering why

We answer Nature’s lightest touch with such

A heavy hand. Is it because we cannot stop

The seasons, we shoot the messengers instead?

 

 

 

Mattress Land

Imagine a crowded mattress store, although many of them are mostly deserted.
(For foreign readers, in the U.S. it's not unusual for customers to try out the mattresses
they are thinking of buying.)

             Mattress Land
 

is where strangers briefly sleep together
on separate beds, wandering flocks of Goldilocks
trading places in search of the one that’s just
right - not too firm or too forgiving- for the price
they’re willing to pay;  or they lie on memory
foam, still as corpses, and pretend to be
the princess who can sense the pea beyond
the two minute test, the restless nights,
the bitter mornings, the pro-rated guarantee.

 

Late Fall

Another acorn poem.  Fewer are falling but with larger consequences.

                        Late Fall

When the last, lone acorn lands on the roof,
it’s so crowded with others the chain reaction
sounds like a small avalanche or a distant
pocket billiard break with the click and roll
of collisions and kisses until there’s
silence –  and everything is rearranged.