October, a poem by Laurel Smith

 

October                           

 

We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond. –Gwendolyn Brooks

 

Weary green makes way

for every shade of fire:

    limbs of maple, beech,

and oak, shrouded all summer,

now sway in a bright wind.

 

The dance of death, they

say, but no one is grieving:

    not the harvest moon,

not sunshine on frostbit grass,

not dreamers eager for the dark.

 

Let’s find atoms that

we share, here in the raucous

    foliage of you, me:

essential as water or air,

the bountiful mess of us.

Laurel Smith lives in Vincennes, Indiana, and happily participates in projects to promote literacy, the arts, social justice, and public health. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Natural Bridge, New Millennium Writings, English Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Flying Island; also in the following anthologies: And Know This Place; Mapping the Muse; Visiting Frost.