Lights

Damp, dark night.
The cicadas
chorus clicking
in the yard. Headlights
turn towards the drive.
Then away.
They’re back.

Crunch

Looking out of my
window at the grey morning
brightened by
the yellow leaves that fell
overnight.
My stomach tells me
time for my morning cup
of tea. First
I must finish this
postcard, walk it to the mailbox
over the crunch of
pecan shells.

Autumn #4

The golden leaves
fall and brighten
my yard under grey skies
promising rain
that hasn’t
fallen.

Cooler temperatures bring
relief from the feels like one
hundred degrees heat.

Twenty six poems out the
door. Autumn comes
even to Atlanta at the
end of August.

Seventy Years Ago

This morning the
golden leaves that fell in
the bushes overnight brighten
my yard.

Addressing today’s postcard to
Massachusetts starts
the picture behind my
eyes of a fall day, trees all golden,
walking beside a river with
my mother in Springfield. A
dog shakes himself to dry as my
four year old self watches.

Milking Goats

Milking the goats in the morning
I felt the connection with milking women
through the ages.
Being pregnant, giving birth,
connected me to days long ago.

Now I’m old, I think about
what my grandparents felt at
my age – all the years before
simultaneously
in our heads.
Re-living, remembering.

Sewing

I walked to and
from the sewing factory. First down
Broad Street to Joy Road.
Then, when they moved, I’d
walk in the other direction
down Broad Street to
Livernois. There were only
three of us sewing clothes
of African fabric. I was
through with school.
Grown.

Leaving Home

After I called
home to
tell them I was
moving out, I’d sit, watching
the happenings on Linwood
from the front window.
Later I would type
it stream of consciousness,
further massacring it,
cutting pages up with scissors,
typing them back in strange order,
making it almost a mystery
fifty years later.
Except
I remember it
all.