October 9
All the words build to exhaustion.
A storm surge of sigh.
October 9 [Book of October]
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Category Archives: Book of October
October 8 [Book of October]
October 8
I’m collecting my life in quarters.
Every year a bit of alloy. In my palm
A pile of tiny time machines.
Some I have kept close:
A single moonbeam, a summer
Alone, a goat, a glimpse
Of what won’t dissolve
Even when devalued.
I’ve tried to ignore the years
When you forgot my name
And then your voice
And then your self
Because there’s still no coin
Of a realm where you’re gone
October 7 [Book of October]
October 7
The path may lead through rain
And a slumber like rain
And twenty seven minutes
That go by like twenty seven days
Under the script another script runs
Like on a player piano
Where what’s missing makes music
October 6 [Book of October]
October 6
Inside you the butterfly pulse
flits from thought to thought
Outside the leaf hears a voice
The color of memory and lets go
October 5 [Book of October]
October 5
Clowns are falling to earth early
And wandering with the wind.
In the alley between tents
Fear is struck like a bargain, like a match.
No one knows what it meant to their easy ears:
“Allez, allez!” Off you go. Come, come now.
A crackle on the police scanner, the leaf
Crushed under the big high top. Away with you.
Author’s note: Regional organized groups of clowns are called “alleys.” The source of the word may be from the alley-like space between circus tents where clowns waited for their cue to enter; or from the cue itself, a traditional “Allez, allez!” which can be translated in any of various ways, depending, perhaps, on the clowns. // JS
October 4 [Book of October]
October 4
We wait for the storm to turn its back.
Lay down early, moon, behind the trees
And mountains; we see the eyes
Of our loved ones, and do not want you to look.
October 3 [Book of October]
October 3
Every wind is coming from the past. It began earlier
And it may enliven even the browned-out ground level
Settling of the sycamore’s spring, its old news
Swirling at my ankles at the edge of the library lot.
What did I forget to return? What crisp regret?
October 2 [Book of October]
October 2 / the dark thought
The dark thought is just ahead
Like a porch off the kitchen,
The door held open
By a painted rock. But the sliding
Glass doors beyond are locked and weather-
Taped shut. I take the dogs outside
Before bed and the sudden quiet
Of crickets as we round the corner
Is like the dark thought. The dull
Glow of the last light bulb going out
Is not the dark thought though
I think it is. It’s like the rocking chair
Which I know I can avoid but
Walk into because my eyes
Are still smarting from the light
Bulb’s ghost, fading memory
Of light, which I turn to curse
And see only the pitch black air:
The solid darkness and lack of
Location: the nothing to grasp:
That’s the dark thought.
October 1 [Book of October]
October 1
It’s dark before we’re ready.
The house hums its electric song to itself.
The breath of the song is power
But the song is not about power.
There’s a borderline to the month.
If you wake on the far side of it you cannot sleep
And lay in the dark, awake early but rested,
Aware of the wind listening to the trees
Say their prayers, like a foster parent
Not yet ready to talk about growing up.
And gradually the notes of the day
Arrange themselves across the earth
Like sheet music. And the trees dream.
When the month’s song is over
And the dead hands are done clapping
The house’s song will be louder.
I remember waking up on the other side
Of that border and I remember the words
I tried sounded like windows shutting.
The house encased in its song’s glow
Like an egg. One spring day we will not be reborn.
It’s dark before we’re ready.
September 30 [Book of October]
September 30
We know what the year’s worth
Like we know a coin from its size in our palm.
The month’s full moon. A gumball in a gumball machine.
And once in awhile, two slip out at once
Into your hands. When did the fall’s first
Cold night become a harbinger for a life
Shifting seasons? I look out there:
Not a leaf has left me. Still, if what’s ahead
Is more than loose change, you’re going
To have to get a lot closer to keep
Us both warm with what’s coming.
Translations from the English 