Tag Archives: autumn

of grasping and giving (II)

The rubied pearls of pomegranate
sparkle in their halved bowl,

the depth of red juice filling in the gaps
where the membrane segments and cradles

the seeds like yolks in whites in shells.
The full leafed plants languish

in the November garden
while the children push their root

systems into their still-warm earth,
crushing the bright arils between their teeth,

exploding the tart-sweet mysteries
of love’s reciprocity, of grasping and giving.

Hope Song

Through the course of
preoccupation with understanding
I keep shadowed
under the canopy of a forest
built with efforts of every shape:
goldened oaks, and old worries,
fired maples and malcontent,
bronzed birches and weeping brokenness,
flamed crab-apples and crooked-perfection;
the leaves are snapping free of the twig,
while mistakes release to the noisy wind.
Watch, watch the light beam through branches,
all barreness revealed and revealing
the turns of days and nights
growing and sleeping under the steady skies,
the reciprocity of love’s vulnerability and strength,
its whispered song of faith.

Storing Up

Bare feet in the October afternoon
we peel apart the flowering silks
of season-ending sweet corn;

the scent of sugared earth floats
as we tear the still-green leaves
revealing rows of cobbed kernels.

Snapping free the stalk and
tossing aside the husk,
we lay the ear by for blanching.

The girls yank and pull and tug
at the shucking, laugh, and grasp
a silk or two with the tips of their fingers

and run through the grass.  I boil, blanch, and shock
the loaded cobs, fillet sheets of gold nuggets into the pan,
spoon the bags full of summer’s gifts for winter’s darkness.

I fill these poems with yanking, pulling, tugging,
shucking, laughing, grasping, running,
the sweetness of childhood’s gifts for the winter’s darkness.