November Begins

Cold . cold is the branch where left
Autumn's captive kiss of death
blown into the trees. And thieves
paint the dying, drying leaves.

Wither, wither, they fall with her
flipping, gliding down together...
Autumn smiles, but then she sighs
she can't meet the sun's stark eyes.
Clouds cover to let her play
and keep the fiery fiend at bay.

Gentlemanly rain starts softly,
tips its hat to Autumn deftly;
they begin a graceful dance
fading to a solemn trance.
Soon the turns get faster, faster
thunder groans and spells disaster
conflict rises, lightening tears
sky in halves; clouds thread-bare...
just as all seems all-out war
with no sides to be fought for
sun, the angel, breaks the dark
calms the long and spidery spark;
makes amends with Autumn's ends
just as November begins.

A poem I didn't write, because I'm just not as cool as Carl Sandburg ...yet.

If you're like me, you have a short attention span, so I have highlighted the stanzas I find particularly fantastic.  this just... it's just... midwest. and I just ... like it.

"Haze"  by Carl Sandburg

Keep a red heart of memories

Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,

Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.

Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;

All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.

 

Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.

They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.

 

Other faces rise on the prairie.

They are unborn. The future.

 

Yesterday and tomorrow cross and mix on the skyline.

The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.

 

In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o'clock

June nights . . . the dead men and the unborn children speak to me . . . I can not tell you what they say . . . you listen and you know.

 

I don't care who you are, man:

I know a woman is looking for you

And her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a west wind.

 

(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X's of milk.)

 

I don't care who you are, man:

I know sons and daughters looking for you

And they are gray dust working toward star paths

And you see them from a garret window when you laugh

At your luck and murmur, "I don't care."

 

I don't care who you are, woman:

I know a man is looking for you

And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.

 

(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset's late maroon.)

 

I don't care who you are, woman:

I know sons and daughters looking for you

And they are next year's wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.

 

My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?

 

On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?

Is it only a dog's jaw or a horse's skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power-house wires cut?

 

Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?

Off-course

(Wandering ships are we)
ready to find another set of sails?
I've been looking for land;
I found you instead.

Is the star you follow
the same as mine? And if
so or if not, I am in
(way over my head.)

My spyglass shifts its gaze (from stars)
from vertical. It gradually
levels out, and lingers
horizontally.

Chasing

Sending leaves crackling down,
Wind sweeps life through the dead
With a solemn repose
Like a sigh I misread.

Though we'd like to believe
we are lords of our parts,
we will always be chasing
somebody's heart.