October Visitation

October Visitation A peeking orange smear Talked to the lad inside his head, When he was eight and nine months, On a breezy October twilight in 1960, As the orange light told him silently, To go to the river's edge behind the red house, To go there and see what it wanted him to see. Night’s shawl of descending gray began its covering, As the boy walked down the horse trail in the midst of chutes, Volleying up green and yellow digesting rotting salmon, With lurching trees swaying a little in the beckoning wind. Upon the smooth stones he slowly trod in foreboding fear, And there upon a large smooth stone he knelt, Folding his hands as in preparation for the mysteries, And then, the boy was compelled to gaze skyward with peering eyes, And he saw it, a silvery flying thing, ethereal as sugar icing, Hover above him, as the first stars exposed themselves like a pox, And the lad prayed to this angel, This otherworldly visitor from the Iam, There incredibly seen, on an obscure river bank near Redding.