Autumn
By Sydney Lea
Why not write something for those
who scratched out improbable livings here?
Someone has managed to sow
This broken field with stones, it appears,
So someone’s scratching it still,
Although that Japanese knotweed has edged
The tilth. Two wasps in the child
Attempt to catch sun on a rail of the bridge.
The old local doctor has passed
At almost a full decade past ninety.
He never seemed depressed.
Seventy now, if barely,
I consider the field again:
Someone will drag these rocks away
But they’ll be back. The air smells like rain,
Which is fine, the summer’s been much too dry.
Nothing is left of the barn
But some rusty steel straps in some nasty red osier.
The stone fence still looks sound,
But even there the knotweed steps over.
Hadn’t I pledged an elegy
To the old ones who worked here? You couldn’t claim
They thrived, exactly, but maybe
They likewise scented good wind full of rain,
Lifted eyes above this old orchard
To the cloud-darkened hills and found their support
Somehow, somewhere. No matter,
They kept going until they could go no more.
The trees’ puckered apples have gathered
A flock of birds, and as they alight,
They’re full of unseasonable chatter,
As if to say that all will be right.
The old ones I promised a poem
Must have said it too. It’ll be all right.
I never knew them. They’re gone.
I say it out loud, It’ll be all right.
—Caledonia County, Vermont
No comments:
Post a Comment