All Souls

Among November leaves,

I find small elegies,

of frosted straw

and furtive creatures’ fur,

amber pods and pennies.

 

I gather what I can carry home,

a basket on the hearth

these hymns of autumn, embers

to warm us through the cold.

 

What I cannot carry in

is the clan of mallards

on the pond, carving a stately poem

in the lines of their glide,

faithful towards their willowed holm.

 

Slow, sure,

they fare glittering forward

and away, trailing grace

that speaks a different

kind of confluence.

 

Fathers, mothers, dates that drift from us

like fallen feathers,

we guard a way obscure to us

with all we have,

the memory of your seasons,

the colors of our grateful days.