20 posts tagged “autumn”
Jay and Danielle have a parrot in their kitchen named Vidal, bright green and very alert... I spend time each day answering his chirps and whistles throughout the house and I try to teach him little lines and melodies from songs I know... but for now it seems I am the one learning his language, following his leads... or maybe during the day when everyone is gone I'm just giving him a little echo of his own voice so he doesn't feel so alone... I'm a weak whistler too, so my answers usually stumble after the bright, quick questions he poses for me... still, there's a part of me that hopes one day he will surprise me and answer back with one of the little song bits I whistle over and over to him, showing me that he really does listen and considers my music of value...
... this has been one of the rainiest weeks I've seen in my time in North Carolina... day-long showers gusseted with cold winds made me break out my cold-weather clothes and keep my bedroom windows closed... the trees are changing strongly now and shaking in tall columns across from the house... and there is a kind of white, lacy wildflower I see blooming all over in the lots and fields around this little development... I have to look them up sometime...
... I also have to get back to writing... I miss it so much... reading too, tho the past day or two I have finally picked up the Stephen King book I got last month ("Just After Sunset", a collection of short stories) and gotten through a story or two now... I have an army of notebooks around me too, on my bed and on the floor, so I'm well prepared for when a new poem might hit... now I just have to sit in my blind and wait for it to happen... should I rub pages of old poems on my clothes in the hope of attracting new ones?... they used to flock to me and I need to feel their feathers on my face again soon... there's nothing like the gentle beating of a word trying to get your attention...
Autumn Rush
I saw the first
frost of autumn
this morning,
and my neighbors
out scraping
their windshields
in the cold;
somewhere
bees are
fighting over
sweaters
before going
outside.
... it's a beautiful, cliched crisp autumn day here in NJ... the trees are at their peak, and there must be 50 or more visible from my balcony so there is color everywhere... for some reason I keep thinking of field trips I took way back in school, probably because it was on a day like this I went on one of my favorite field trips ever... our science teacher, Miss Baals, took several of her science classes on a fossil hunting trip... we took a long drive up to Monmouth County, I don't remember exactly where to, but we ended up in this wooded area with a creek running through it... and we had sifters and shovels, and spent the morning and early afternoon digging up sharks teeth, petrified wood and other bits... it was so great because it was hands on, and rewarding - I mean, we actually FOUND what we went there to find... yeah, we took trips to the Franklin Institute and Natural History museum, but there were kind of routine... you saw the usual sights, bought a few souvenirs, and then went back home... the same season Miss Baals took us for the fossil hunt she also took us to Cherry Hill Mall where they were having a big rock and gem show... all sorts of collectors and dealers had displays throughout the mall, and you could buy books and jewelry and rough stones and gems... I loved it so much I begged my mother to take me back on the weekend for the final day of the show...
Growing up we lived about half an hour from Cherry Hill Mall, but once a month we'd catch the bus and spend the day there... breakfast in McDonalds, then shopping for a while... then a movie, cause there was a theater in there back then... then maybe a few more stores before going home... and back then there were two bookstores in the Mall, and my mother and I always hit both of them... we didn't have much back in those days, we couldn't afford vacations or expensive things... but she always bought me books...
I would love to be able to do things like those old field trips now... especially cemetaries, I find them very fascinating these days... and yes, I would go to one at night, I think that would be very exciting... I just would rather go to some place with some history or uniqueness to it, than just another movie or concert...
Way back when I was real little, the pastor of our church once took a group of us up to Red Bank, NJ, for a Saturday... he was a man very interested in history, especially the Revolutionary War... so we visited an old cemetary and church up there, and then spent the afternoon beside some lake whose name is lost to me now... the funny thing was, on the way home everyone was getting hungry, so we found some little diner to stop at... well, most of us ordered hamburgers, and when they arrived we all tucked in... but immediately everyone began talking about how different their burgers tasted... we called the waitress over and asked her about them, and she said they were venison... well, most of us didn't know what that meant, lol, and our pastor told us then that is was deer meat... and the waitress then informed us that the owners were hunters who brought in a lot of the meat they used in the kitchen... well, needless to say it put a lot of us off our dinners, lol, but it was a neat day anyway...
... it's a wonderful thing how a certain slant of sunlight on a tree, a color or a scent, can bring so many memories to mind... a lot of this was going thru my mind when I laid down for a quick nap this afternoon... all these memories... they made for some heartbreaking dreams that made me wake up quick, but it was worth it to lose myself in those images of days past...
A camera-phone pic I took last night during Moopy's walk... the trees are about
half-turned so far, some are really spectacular, I know the pic doesn't do this one justice, cause in the sunlight the yellow-orange color is amazing.
The Summer Plants
All the summer plants
have gone brittle and dry
in their pots.
In the early sun
they shake with wanting
to remember what it
felt like to have flowers,
some ghost-feeling
at the end of their
now dead stems,
the leaves almost
weeping that only
days ago there was
more of them
to embrace.
Swaying on a Branch
The leaves sighed and
abandoned the tree
for the hard ground below,
now only the humming bird
feeder is left, glowing red
and shadeless in the
October sun like some
bizarre ruby flower
defying decay, swaying
on a branch, the last
watering hole in town,
its keg still full of the thick
scarlet nectar its patrons prefer,
tho' they are miles away now
and gone south for the winter,
leaving this lost neon sign
of comfort behind for the season,
only a lone spider remaining
to wipe down the tables
and turn up the chairs.
At The End of Charnish Street
Drawn as I am by curious things,
I followed a street past homes, parks and swings,
to a house by itself, set back like an estate,
shadowed by trees scant light could penetrate;
I felt the wind through the leaves begin to blow,
and the tall grass whispered all I needed to know,
that no one had lived there two decades at least,
and those who had were surely long now deceased.
Remembering how it was close to Halloween,
made me wonder if at night anything could be seen
of the long vanished residents of this old site,
if I came back at midnight without any light.
But even if by dark I could recall the way,
would I work up the courage to go in and stay
and meet who might linger in those empty rooms
when in a proper age and time they'd be in their tombs.
I decided as a stranger it was not for me to know,
if any former inhabitants ever put on a show,
so while daylight still ruled I turned and made to go,
though I swear something waved from an upper window.
Take A Jacket
The autumn air
cools quickly
at dusk;
a thousand stars
huddled around
the night's
pretty neck.
Bright Season
On the cloudiest
day of October,
denying the rain,
autumn's lamp
is clear among
the trees.
The Leaf Pile
The leaf pile whispers it has places to go,
so when I turn my back, it begins to flow,
up into the wind as if it would be free,
or even find itself once again on the tree,
but its freedom lasts only a moment or so,
then it falls back down to the dead grass like snow,
and I must rake and redeem it to a pile, fit and trim,
before the very next gust undoes my work on a whim.
