Things Forgotten

Tempest (three o'clock)

Tempest sought the city in a second
soaked the streets with icy rivets
of rain of hail of leaves and twigs
and we stood beneath a porch just feet
from the storm, the ice, water and nature
so suddenly descended on the town.

We stood packed in close beneath
a roof, coats hugged close and feet
finding toes curling closer in
shoes' maternal confines
cold banished to the outside world.

Is this what brought Georgia
so deep into this world beneath
the watchful eyes of a pagan god
long lost, long gone forgotten amongst
the red sand cliffs and sweeping sky?


Fragment

Beneath the moon
we moved
the chilly air smokey on my back
and thighs and neck
the arches of my feet cupping the sound
that welled up from the earth holding it close.
October watched
in consternation
in fascination, approval.


Before Thanksgiving

Tuesday night, we wait.
Two days now it will be a holiday
we'll celebrate and laugh
we'll clean then store then wait a month more
something ancient moving us to reverence--
a rusty Saturnalia, perhaps, held so long under water.
There will be something tender in the cold night
and though the frost will approach
it will step softly on that evening
or we will tell ourselves it does.
I saw a mourning dove
this morning, early,
still tawny as the sun stretched itself,
ascending higher than normal,
glassy, disdainful shy this time,
waiting, too, for the laughter.
The bird watched unimpressed with the movement below
keeping vigil
and this afternoon I saw it asleep, arm underwing
coddling its disappointment.
November wants to play but lost its legs
lost its playmates
wrote a book;
we whisper in the house
to keep from upsetting him
but one day I'll climb upstairs and take
his old lacy hand and put it in my
warm feathery one
and show him the hazy sky
and the laughter won't be so plotted or confined
and the dove will fly.