my sacred season.
Ash and leaves
and it seemed
you fell from the sky
becoming October
and now,
you bargain for
November.
You’ve taken the leaves,
fields of gold--
what’s left of the corn crop,
what’s left of the sunflowers.
The sunlight dancing
across their carcasses.
You haunt me through smoke.
Through cottonwood trees
gripping their shriveled leaves
in vain.
Before an autumn breeze strips
them down
to their gray reaching skeletons.
And I ask, “why?”
“Why now?”
After so many seasons
now you see
the clocks fall back
and it’s your turn
to dig up ghosts
this time.