Backyard Georgics

It takes a calendar one damp day to declare fall,
weeks of dying mums to second the motion.

* * *

Gone the homeland, gone the father, nothing left
but invisible north to magnetize your doubts.

* * *

Not eulogies or hearses but the sandwiches after,
estranged cousins chewing under one umbrella.

* * *

One clock for errands, one for midnight
trysts, though neither will hurry a slow train.

* * *

Prairie is not the floor nor sky the coffered ceiling.
Even a scarecrow is wise beyond its straw.

* * *

Look down: a river of grass. Look up: a velvet lost
and found. Look inside: no straws to drink that dusk.

* * *

A woman’s watch thieved by a jay—ah, to be lifted
like that, to be carried like time across lapping waves.