Autumn Garden

I wrote these two poems a couple of years ago – more just streams of consciousness, as most of my free verse poems are.

Autumn Garden

wind whispers through the dying leaves
the sound masked
by the waves racing each other to the shore
the water beyond is banded
with what I believe are sandbars
too cold to test my theory
I do not yet see
the autumn colours
though everything is muted
sucked dry like the aging season
a handful of blossoms
rallying against the vampiric effect
the ship on the horizon
appears to be moving backwards
would that I could do so too
a butterfly has lost its way
I can relate to that


Autumn Garden II
(from the bench on the boardwalk)

a man in a wet suit
searching for gold

women walking in pairs
the minutiae of their lives
trailing behind them like perfume

a woman with her dog
down on the sand
she unclips his leash
there’s so much joy in his freedom
I must look away

wide empty sand
smoothed out by the wind

the clouds on the horizon
follow me home

I quicken my steps