But I did get up early enough to do some raking, and now the back lawn is mostly leafless. I can still recall autumn by going into the back back yard beyond the jasmine hedge, where the ground remains almost entirely covered with dead leaves. I'm always reluctant to let autumn go completely. Any leaves left lying about are like a bridge from fall to spring. I can cross it in my imagination and look down at winter swirling below, while my thoughts dwell in milder days behind me or yet to come.
Tonight I keep thinking of spring. Something in the back of my mind wants to see small, soft green leaves sparkling in bright sun. Not that the winter sky was not splendid today, with streaks of cloud shimmering with concealed sunlight. It wasn't even as cold as it has been, and my toes barely got numb when I was walking around. That's always a good thing. Despite that I am also looking forward to getting a bit of snow this year. It's been quite a while since we've had any, and so far this year seems pretty likely to bring some.
But if it does snow I'm sure I'll be thinking about those first green leaves. I want the air to smell of chlorophyll again, not leaf mold.
Sunday Verse
Polar
by Dobby Gibson
Like the last light
spring snowfall
that seems to arrive
from out of nowhere
and not land, exactly, anyplace,
so too do the syllables of thought
dissolve silently into the solitude
of the body in thought.
Like touching your skin,
or the first time I touched ice
and learned it was really water
and that neither were glass,
so does the jet contrail overhead
zip something closed in us,
perhaps any notion of the bluer.
Glancing sunlight,
my shoulders bearing the burden
or any theory why these birds
remain so devoted
to their own vanishing.
One store promises flowers
for all your needs,
another tells you
everything must go.
One river runs like a wound
that will never heal,
one snow falls like a medicine
that will never salve,
you the Earth, me the moon,
a subject moved in a direction
you desire, but for reasons
I believe to be my own.