Fall Leaves Fall
by Emily Brontë
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Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

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the summer visage long faded from caramel,
to a bastardized version of ugly dirt brown,
the streets empty of traffic and the silence
is a sadder shade of lesser peace, the vibrancy
given way to sharper clearer long division disagreement

my worrisome peaks when the trees
denuded, less shelter than ever.
no cover offered, we stand divided,
visible lines of demarcation,
unable to hide, from each other,
unable to hide, from our selves,
the briefer day transits quicker
into night’s decay, and the words
we utter and state,, hollow sounded,
have no echo ability, no resounding,
and we all grow silenced, partly in
shame, partly because partisan words
bring no gain, or the satisfaction of a
response that makes us say ah ha! you see!

the leaves crumble breneath tired treads
and forested footsteps long ago forgotten,
beige dust that the wind swirls, delighted
by its new power to spread its grounded
memories of human interference into
a coverlet of dust

this fallen solitude hurts me, for it is in
opposition to the joy gay screams of children
in to water running, the oohs and ahs, of freedom’s fireworks  gloried colors proclaiming we are “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”

Emily shmemily,
Emily Dickinson,
Recluse and poetess,
Rendered her rhyme

Idiosyncrously,
Much of her poetry
Reading most quizzically
Much of the time.

These days I’ve been looking to the past, to all the women before me. The revolutionaries whose words helped shape the way I see the world; the way I see nature; the way I see simple, ordinary pleasures of life become extraordinary.

These days I let my pen flow freely across the page. I look to all the women before me for guidance because I find myself afraid to speak my own truth. They teach me with words how to live presently, never looking back because there’s no room for mistakes to reside here.

These days we’re on a first name basis. With wide-eyed clarity, all the women before me allow a short glimpse of them as they once were: bright young things full of hope with a cigarette loosely balanced between faded red lips and hands that move deftly over a typewriter. The room is filled with cigarette smoke and incense. I can almost smell it now but the vision is gone with the wind.

These days I seek out: Zelda; Sylvia; Anne; Emily; Joan; Virginia. To all the women before me, I have found you. They’re no longer a black and white still photograph or a short film reel. In those moments, they stay forever young etched in time from decades ago.

These days I welcome you all in my waking dreams. To all the women before me, you are not lingering ghosts being passed by unseen. You are not remembered for how you left this earth but for how, after all this time, you still remain unchanging.

and what lucie is what you get
or so a new voice, charmingly said
Puns profoundly... playful direct
pull me toward this new subject

less than a year is all I've got,
to see from such new eyes
absorbing all which might be taught
when my memory's a minefield...

I get so far ahead of myself
I wonder why I write
without the longing, without the lost,
how can we know how deep the cost?
to feel or not- Its a choice now-

& it's as it's always been
Ours to give,
and to receive.

Because I could stop for Life—
She kindly stopped with me—
The carriage held not just ourselves
but all mortality.

We promptly drove; we knew of haste—
I didn't put away
my labour nor my leisure too
for Her civility.

We passed an industry where workers worked—
At midnight— in the room—
We passed the fields of gazing grain—
We passed a megamall—

Or rather— they passed us—
The cloud unhid a paintful ray—
For certain cotton made my clothes,
my plastics only pay—

We paused before a house that seemed
a miracle in the air—
Its use was scarcely visible:
A trick of tear and wear—

Since then— 'tis days and yet
feels longer than the aeon
we first surmised the turning sky
were toward Temporary.

I shall stay home tonight
For head is louder than the sphere's noises
Throbbing with words... I can be less familiar
The moderns, it said, are swallowing us whole
But who are us? Who spoke?
Emily... whispered to me
Through this loneliness of poetry
I am not a modern, she said, we are ancient
But why I am her patient? To her, who told?
Axis of modernity... that's where she is
Through this, we made love to each
So I will settle, I said, to your handsome endowma
Questions, questions... no more conundra
Through and through, I must deify you