Day breaks on Doubletop Mountain, shadowing villages below.
Three-thousand eight hundred feet tall, it captures the eye!
And standing at attention there in front of me, a battalion of Sugar Maples in full…. Fall…. Regalia!
Cascading tones of Crimsons, Burgundy, scarlet reds and Golden Hue.

Gazing over Dunk Hill as farmer’s plow  fields, turn again for fertility,
There are only brief streams of life giving sunlight, and now the sky turns to a pale grey.
Me, well I live for this time of year….enjoying the evening autumn constellations,
Or Moms dining table adorned with Indian corn and blackberry canes!

Bessie's Margaretville home begins the fall ritual of canning and drying.
Breaking out winter clothes…as she proclaims "no whites after Labor Day"!
The last bit of warmth now dwells just behind the Catskill’s Harvest Moon,
And the V of geese honk their good-byes to the summer sun.

I was relaxed, and deep in thought
The type of talk that silence brought
When just in earshot it rocked,
tick tock
tick tock
"Must be a clock"
I told myself and resumed my thought

Though as the seconds passed I could not,
Despite the will with which I fought
Do to its incessant knock
Tick tock
Tick tock
I searched for the clock
Unable to find the train I sought

I grew more and more distraught
With each and every tick and tock
That find the clock, I could not
As the silence grew more fraught
With the knock,
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
I knew the pain of Lancelot

On and on it ticked and tocked
I cursed at the unseen dreadnought
It no longer merely mocked
But each and every tick and tock
Became an unseen onslaught
TICK TOCK
TICK TOCK
T'was 11 o'clock,
When my heart felt the gunshot

Though the shots I could not block
And on and on the bullets poured
Further into the fray I bored
Each foot a cinderblock
Weighed by war
I slowly walked
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
How I'd make it answer for

Alas
With little blood left to speak for Desperately I implored
"Restrain your hands that caused such gore;
We need not fight evermore!"
But when I heard the ceaseless knock
Tick tock
Tick tock
I new my words had been ignored
And slowly collapsed to the floor

****** and bludgeoned when I hit bed rock, I had still found no clock
But tick and tock it had forgot
The church bell rang t'was 12 o'clock,
Though mortal wounds the seconds wrought
I no longer was distraught
And as I lay in the hemlock
It occurred in my last thoughts
I would miss the beating knock
tick..., tock...
tick..., tock...

I walked a summer day, warm and fair
Thirst my only burden, and lightly so
For all was light before the sun
I found a rabbit upon the ground

He lay on the soil, shivering
Despite the bright he grew cold
Beside him a hemlock plant was cut
I stayed with him till the end.

I sat in the buttercups and poison leaves
And spoke to him.
'I am sorry, wise friend, for you who knew all
Could not make a gambit of this ****.'

I lay him to rest and walked on, the thirst taking hold
And met a fawn, poison creeping through her too
Her legs shook, I held them tight
And spoke to her.

'Alas, many of you, wise friends have fallen to this evil,
On this wonderful day I feel nothing but remorse
A fear of what has befallen you,
Why did you not run?'

The fawn, sharp of eye and tongue, yet deep of heart
Said nothing, though her eyes were full of words
I lay with her and read her pity
'Til the very end.

Lastly, taking my throat in dry anguish
I walked on, the heat now unbearable,
The path lay ahead
With broken souls of wise thinkers

I heard, in my anguish
A hoot, and looked up
An owl on a branch who did not cry
But could not fly for torment

'Why have all these great beings fallen?'
I asked him, sour of tongue
He could not speak, but pointed
At the old forest, which was no more

In its place, fields of hemlock stood
Before it I could not, and wept.

'You see, dear human, our forest is gone
And with it our world and our souls
Your kind has committed what we would call wrong,
But you would call reaching your goals.

With nothing to eat, they fed on the stalks,
With nothing to drink, they drank of the sap
Great thinkers and knowers these walkers of walks
Are fallen at the claws of your trap.'

And with his words in my mind he flew from his tree
And fled the fields for the sky
Above me the mountains, below me the sea
My thirst was such that my eye

Sought out some water, but such was there none
Just hemlock, and that I did take
I drank of the sap and like them I was done
Like my own kind my life was forsake'.

Closed ears refuse to listen
To anyone other than themselves,
Closed hearts shun empathy,
Closed minds don't see anything beyond
Their own limited perception,
This includes closed eyes,
Although sometimes you have to
Close your physical eyes
In order to see with your mind's eye.

Being closed means being deprived.

Be open to all existence,
Be open to  new experiences,
Be open to knowledge,
Be open to wisdom,

And then be ready
To fill your cup to
The brim with hemlock
For corrupting the youth
With clarity and liberty.

Originally written 1/30/11
Revised 10/18/14

(c) 2014 Brandon Antonio Smith