Eastern Autumn
Like patterns picked in a prayer rug,
embers and hidden flames, buried
in raked mounds or dying grass,
scorch the air and earth beneath,
raising a long wall of smoke,
as the winds call, call to each other
and revolve, lifting flakes of ash,
sadness leaving, sadness returning.
Overhead, like the red hands of assassins
smearing the dark, stripped limbs,
the foliage loosens its death grip,
as I watch and wish it would let go.
In the west, millions of acres burn,
consuming the finished work of humans,
but here at night, a continent distant,
the sunless horizon is bright with that burning.
Et in Arcadia, Ego...
A dappled floor in the forest
enclosure is warm with moisture,
beading on clumped moss
and snowdrop heads bent
on unfolding up from the earth.
A few boulders tumbled
there, interrupt the river
run, riverrun,
towards some hidden end,
unfolding up from the earth.
The blue heron who homes
by this bend is gone or flying
downstream, that hermit
replaced by two geese
on the dappled edge of the forest,
chanting enchanted calls,
iambic voices, clear
in the crisp air, and then
the pair makes an escape,
interrupting the river run.
Was I the one they beckoned?
The one the invisible heron
awaited, day and night,
knowing how soon I'd be gone,
like the chanted, enchanting cry?
Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator. He taught classes on global religions for almost forty years. His poems have appeared in various literary journals in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Asia. He lives now in a small village near a nature conservancy, a green cemetery, and Amish farms.
Like patterns picked in a prayer rug,
embers and hidden flames, buried
in raked mounds or dying grass,
scorch the air and earth beneath,
raising a long wall of smoke,
as the winds call, call to each other
and revolve, lifting flakes of ash,
sadness leaving, sadness returning.
Overhead, like the red hands of assassins
smearing the dark, stripped limbs,
the foliage loosens its death grip,
as I watch and wish it would let go.
In the west, millions of acres burn,
consuming the finished work of humans,
but here at night, a continent distant,
the sunless horizon is bright with that burning.
Et in Arcadia, Ego...
A dappled floor in the forest
enclosure is warm with moisture,
beading on clumped moss
and snowdrop heads bent
on unfolding up from the earth.
A few boulders tumbled
there, interrupt the river
run, riverrun,
towards some hidden end,
unfolding up from the earth.
The blue heron who homes
by this bend is gone or flying
downstream, that hermit
replaced by two geese
on the dappled edge of the forest,
chanting enchanted calls,
iambic voices, clear
in the crisp air, and then
the pair makes an escape,
interrupting the river run.
Was I the one they beckoned?
The one the invisible heron
awaited, day and night,
knowing how soon I'd be gone,
like the chanted, enchanting cry?
Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator. He taught classes on global religions for almost forty years. His poems have appeared in various literary journals in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Asia. He lives now in a small village near a nature conservancy, a green cemetery, and Amish farms.
