Love Letters in a Murmuration

An Inauguration of Autumn

Joy sings rays from golden horizon,

Crimson leaves decay into dust.

Mountain peaks tease a yawn, ready for slumber,

steady a breathy song.

Breathe in—two, three. Out—two, three.

Garden keepers spin a grand finale,

in letters with infinite love,

gathering dew drops for nests of writers—

the ones who carry on.

Webs dangle from pinecone to branches,

roots tremble and bow,

for autumn’s inauguration is crowned

by curly dock’s tender rosette.

In banks are hollows of rations:

hazelnut, hickory, persimmons.

Squirrels bury and scurry,

a sermon of nature.

Was it eight or nine trips by now?

On nimble vines black bears seek

shrivels of mulberries, off-cast by starlings,

who leap like rivers over boulders,

across puffed plumes in a white haze of black murmurations.

Twenty, sixty times—more maybe?

Curling from chimneys, oak fuels warmth,

steam cashmere of lips to lips.

My bones curled up into his,

our porch a theater.

The film—a day like this.