Still Life

In the walnut branches the birds of September begin to gather.
Late August. Empty chairs. My mind’s dinner guests.

The woman who bought the house next door pulled up the ivy
on the property line, and with it tore the bird-hollow branches

of the butterfly bush from their roots. And with that
the flying leaves of fall whose nature is not to fall will not

find my front yard. They who could bear thoughts of enormous weight
over great distances. Now I must take this thought

far up in the sky, where this poem will cast the shape
of it, its shadow only, on your mind’s green ground.

I am exhausted, ready to drop it all, when I see
I am carrying nothing. Down below you have found

a perfect place to plant a butterfly bush. It’s late August.
On the back patio the empty chairs await the arriving guests.