Novembersummer

Midfall and nearly all the trees Stand brown as broken sticks Against a sky of impossible blue And I in shirtsleeves a-walking go, With love and longings my companions Kicking through the drifts of colored shards Fallen with another Summer's stealthy fading Feeling and marveling at this piece of heat That dropped unnoticed from her pocket. I could believe today In an America unnamed, A place full of wild things and untamed peoples A place where Spirit spreads To ride the clouds And sing its songs unhindered. Nature has let down her locks today; And who will look on her And let themselves be consumed, entranced By the beauty that lives on in spite of our assaults - Who will be distracted by the miracles we move through, Feel the surge of the sea of life all around us, Hear the whispered prayers In the windsigh of the sleeping trees And watch the night come on Announced by the rose glow behind the thumbnail moon - Who will stand amid such things, And not put aside for the moment Those little cares we circumscribe our lives with, And stand amazed to be here breathing, Alive to feel how loving-close Infinity holds us and claims us for its own; Surely, not I alone. I rest a hand on my sleeping child's chest; Feel the heart fluttering beneath the skin And I can sense a great wheel turning. I wander out in the still warm darkness That follows this day, To look up at the starstrewn sky And see that great wheel begin its turning, And stand amazed to be here breathing. And stand, amazed to be.