End Times, Again

Athens, Georgia
November 30, 2016

Light drains from another year.
The hymn of insects dwindles. Days
diminish. Cycles reset. End times

come again. Today, the passion-vine
bears yellowed fruit and withered
leaves, which late-season caterpillars

scour in vain. Soon, the chrysalis
succumbs to cold. Bumblebee colonies
collapse. Inseminated queens abandon

their hives. Orphaned workers wander
brown fields in search of nectar. Perhaps
an aster persists somewhere. But home

field has gone to seed. Beside the dry
depression that nursed the new spring
salamanders, Lurid sedges flaunt battle

spikes. Wild rye wields tan spears. Dark
pods hang from Senna. The tips of thistles
launch parachutes into November wind.

Ironweed bristles, grasses bend. Blue
stems wave soft tufts like tattered prayer
flags. Today, the hope of new life lies

buried in root and seed bank, tucked
in mud and sleeping queens. But to us
now, the season of culling is come.

Lurid sedge, photo by Don Hunter

Morning After My Fifty Year Reunion

South of Fayetteville, NC
October 8, 2017

A soft rain bathes the dry pines of Carolina
as I drive down a Southern road
into another autumn.

Farewell old loves. 
You spoke your truths, and I
shared mine. The world bleeds for something new. 

Cloudless Sulphurs flutter over brown fields,
across winding back roads, onto
goldenrod shoulders.

Goodbye, perhaps 
forever. It is, after all, autumn; 
for some, their last now fades to sepia.

The sun will still sparkle from roadside puddles
and woodland sunflowers will shine
like a fresh van Gogh.

Friends, you rode 
the fiery horse to far-off wars, 
or wandered wild roads without a weapon. 

Today, a living mist soothes the trees.
Stubble covers sandy fields.
Soy fades to pale.

Would you tame 
the feral soul at last? Friends, 
we have striven. Soon, with grace, we yield.