Backyard Georgics

It takes a calendar one damp day to declare fall,

weeks of dying mums to second the motion.

                               *     *     *

Gone the homeland, gone the father, nothing left

but invisible north to magnetize your doubts.

                               *     *     *

Not eulogies or hearses but the sandwiches after,

estranged cousins chewing under one umbrella.

                               *     *     *

One clock for errands, one for midnight

trysts, though neither will hurry a slow train.

                               *     *     *

Prairie is not the floor nor sky the coffered ceiling.

Even a scarecrow is wise beyond its straw.

                               *     *     *

Look down: a river of grass. Look up: a velvet lost

and found. Look inside: no straws to drink that dusk.

                               *     *     *

A woman’s watch thieved by a jay—ah, to be lifted

like that, to be carried like time across lapping waves.