Raking autumn leaves
the color of sea stars
mottled on moist ground

I watch them fall
spinning slowly through blue sky
as if the breeze was a tide
ebbing and rising

the rake feels like a paintbrush
collecting color
muddied by mixing
into a fall palette

a still life with fruit
pears and apples still unblemished
on branch attached
but mushy and vinegar smelling

our big white Pyr
helps herself to fallen fruit
laying claim to each orb
her huge paws on either side
moist nose buried
in the rust of the Bosch
the red of the Delicious

we fill a wheelbarrow of leaf draped fruit
to bring below for coyotes
we trap on camera
motion sensed
but motionless

Malama the Pyr
waits whining wondering
if our chill morn together has ended
but the leaves are piles of the fallen
our task is not yet done

more are gathered on tarp
and dragged to garden bed
to blanket wintersleep of bulb and tuber
to feed in their decay
the new blooms of a next spring day

I have always raked
far preferring the quiet metal combing
through grassy tangled tufts
over motored loud blower’s hum
sending Moore's leaves whirling skyward

but I am no longer  tempted
to jump in the pile
gathering armfuls whose yellow color
is a child's crayon sun
and toss them for a second fall

no longer are they bagged  
in thick black plastic to wait
decomposition amongst the landfill’s
less pastoral refuse

nor are they burned
sending acrid leaf spirit smoke
into the cold pale blue
of October afternoon

now their raking is not a ridding
a discarding of what was season’s decoration
soon useless brown
but more of a farewell
a leaving of the light

an offering of what is still of use
in the aged for what will be
a period of cold and dark
and winter's rest
before the next season of green
begins

Why is the creation
not a story of tears
birth is pain
creation grief
the made is always unmade
the end waits
baleful and patient

There are two eternities of darkness...

The before
Before conquerors enwombed their seeds
shaped like the tears of women
and un-entombed lay the gray
detritus of the fallen
before ancestors were driven
from hearth stumbling
falling on cold roads alone
before empires burned language
onto the tongues of slaves
before iron and bronze
and the moans on the battlefields
of the abandoned
a gangrenous sound
ended only by scavenger’s tooth
or simply cold time

The after
After children's children's children
no longer laughed
at their children’s sweet smiles
after slaves became masters
and even their new language
passed from the memories of mountains
now diminished and gone
after metal ripped from ***** lands
became highways that brought news of tragedies
no-one heard
except those whose hearts were branded
by the heat of the suffering

So this ‘tween light is blinked and short
with all details silhouetted
with all meaning muted
with all comfort from kin or kingdom covered
by the darkness before power
by the darkness after glory
by the darkness forever

There is a certain light
which sits just on the edge of a cloud
more nuanced by the hues of blue sky
then the paler palletes of the further horizon

And you have seen the yellow flame dance
on the log
whose sparks
rise and twirl into the deep
crepuscular and cerulean blue
of summer’s twilight

And you have seen the golden
grasses’ halo
glow and circle round meadows
where tiny spinners of dandelion
catch the last lights of dimming day
as they parachute
drifting like dust

And you have seen the mountain
at fall’s eve catch the
purple-red of summer sunset
even as the currents and crests
of the cold Sound catch the same
both tinged majestic by its color

Light rising and falling
you have seen
reflected moonlight on midnight streams
rain bent neons on late wet sidewalks
candles dancing on lover’s skin
showers of light through storm clouds
and willow branches
the incandescence of stars
the cheap fluorescence of dingy bars

Light reflected and collected
you have seen
blue flames ‘neath copper pots
the mirrored heat antonymous
to glacial turquoise
or the sharp laser of snow’s
crystal rainbow

Living light
you have seen
liquid ocean bioluminescence
reminiscent of aurora
greener than firefly’s child-chased
summer lanterns
cat-eye glow
shining snakes of lava flow

So when you close your eyes
and your sleep is lit
mystical as the borders
of medieval illuminated
manuscript
and the light is tranquil
as the movements
of turtles and manatees
through shadowed shallows
all the light you have seen
becomes all the light
you can dream
and all the light below and above
becomes all the light
with which you love.

…
Today is not a good day
Today affirmations do not affirm me
Meditation is not mindful
Breath is not counted
Thoughts are not observed and gently let go
Today I am holding on to pain though
Misery is not strength and
I am not strong
Today doubt is king
Insights are blind
Realizations forgotten
Today is not a good day
There is blood on the window
Splattered like the cloacal spray
of some scavenging bird
the rain spreads it into separate
pools...like every drop
is wounded
as the bird that hit the glass
it did not see
flying into reflection
of an unreal sky
I am tired of trying to not die
while dying while trying
I am tired of trying to not cry
while crying while trying
I am not asleep
and the night is slow
with the room's light above
and the darkness below.