For Sandy and Theresa
I don’t know how it’s going back home—out here
It’s long been building back up to a kind
Of vehement optimism, weather clear
And cold: blue days like we’ve not seen, fresh winds
Harrying fall in. Quiet, dry yellow light
Rattles the English walnut, and the jays
Uneasy with the change, arrange to fly
Back to ancestral homes up in the pines.
But many central facts I haven’t weighed
Flit in the hills like shadows. And the dream
Hangs on.
God won’t return my calls.
(Desires
Like bees settling into a new hive.)
Harvesting honey, don’t forget to leave
Enough for bees to over-winter, —I’ve
Got some stored in the pantry, to sweeten
The autumn air. For bees, I mean. What, sir,
Gives worries legal standing? Who’ll out-source
The reckonings? To labor in the fields
The sun’s been beating on since early May,
Lets guys we knew in high school have a say
About the vintage layout but, in sooth,
While walking in your vineyard I was stunned
I’d learned Euclidean geometry,
The postulates and theorems we all love—
Enough of reminiscing! Could you leave
A Wilson’s warbler, a wood duck or two,
Behind, let mare’s tail cirrus linger on
Above the hills maybe another hour…
There’s time: put on raiment of camel’s hair,
The meat of locusts and wild honey being—
So I returned. The old host in the woods
Was much the same. New doors were opening
To autumn light. It’s not by being shy
That I’ve accumulated several tonnes
(I like the British spelling) of ripe fruit,
All redolent of black current and Bing
Cherry, a brix just under 24, —
With so many pretenders shown the door.
Now long, late summer days, cool evenings, too,
Breach forward toward the barrel aging, but
We can’t be resting on our laurels now
That bay laurel in this heat exudes a smell,
At once piquant and sweet, up in the wood,
And storms assemble, equinoctial,
Patiently waiting out in the northwest
To ruin the harvest of our neighbor. Now —
I’ve mentioned the ambrosias of the rains
Winter will carry in, the year’s deer mice
Battening the hatches as in Robert Burns,
Working up nests of dried grasses and moss
Against the day of difficulty—
What
Prevents our souring on the mix of rain
And wind, is nothing less than optimal
Arrangement of the fallen leaves, the light
That’s all but free among the homing bees,
And soaring turkey vultures, that will win
Their place in heaven, however uncouth
Or ungainly their struggles on the ground
Dining on the unspeakable. Remains
Of these days being parceled out among
Us, the survivors, will beckon us toward
The solstice, as the wine’s laid up, and Juan
Calls us out for the olive harvest, rain
Or subtle shine that in the silvery leaves
Bespeaks a certain reticence, a song
Of water working its way down, the earth
Fissured, but gratified, vine roots at rest.
IX.1.2008
