On Watching October

Season of paradox, your brilliant death
lies bare before us in maniacal melancholy.
I can still see the hopscotch boards,
faint on the pavement after summer rinse.

I've cut short the last breath of the rosebush,
pulled the buds indoors. They stand stoically
against the window, watching grey clouds
stretch their bodies over the dying fields.

The river mist rolls with mellow resignation
in the early morning. I watch it tumble down
where my kayak might have skated, wondering,
always wondering where the time has gone.

Wafts of mown grass mingle with smoke
from backyard fires behind the alley's fences,
where bicycles, pitched on their sides, lie wasted
next to stubble plains, beneath the swallow's skies.

Stiffened cornstalks lean on mailboxes, poke
through the neighbor's pretend cobwebs,
and the last cricket croaks to no one,
singing of longer days.