Bare Feet and Feathers

Fall tosses summer’s heavy breath, With a cantaloupe syrup, That blankets your tongue Its sweet chill tightens your throat And tosses your head back, So flare your nostrils into the wind Let your corneas catch those pinpricks of life That escapes the Universal coal. Life begins at the soles of your feet And sings in the swing of your hips Extend… Extend, Extend! And your soul remains in your shoes Under the weight of your terminal calendar. Wear bells and anklets and clack castanets Roll and whirl, grind and swirl Be tawny vellum taunting Be sweaty and sweet wanting Needing validations from fingers dancing Over goose flesh, hair and underwear. Be exhausted and spent Draped across your lover And when you step on to the porch Jupiter will wink Reach… Reach, Reach! And you’ll never poke Saturn And set its rings spinning like dinner plates. We are atoms of God Made to be mulch And made to be sung Dancing our dances In fanciful unison.

Our New England season was warned to us. It was rumored in the smoke of August’s barbecue. And slipped from underneath a mulch pile. Our burly season sits in a weave of rag wool It whispers to us in hot cider steam And rides on hay bales behind a tractor. Our flannel season rests on corn field stubble. It stretches before us in shadows over gnarly bark And hides beneath dry fractured crunch. Our crashing season simpers in crumbling leaves It rushes, crushes and crinkles ahead of each step And blushes like pumpkins on your cheek. Our hand holding season snags the breath of a waterfall It wishes for hot chocolate, pie, and turkey And rides on the tail of a red tailed hawk. Our learning season rings its bell in pale grey linoleum It is a wide open bulletin board populated by thumb tacks And leaks out of your new backpack. Our gravestone rubbing season chaps your lips It knits charcoal in feathers with breezes And glistens like sugar and sap. Our Autumn reminds