The sun sets leaping in fierce golden shafts
As days shift shorter with Winter’s warning
We seek emblazoned fires from the chilled drafts
That glaze windows from iced winds each morning
As twilight falls stale dead leaves swirl rifting
Barbed smells of Pine and Tannin Oak scent streams
From forest floor fumes in brisk air hinting
Drab pumpkin, peach and tawny spiced Fall dreams
Sit quietly, watch dusk’s seasonal show
November’s clouds spangled in etched fire stun
When a portrait clad in sheathed splendor flows
A palette of Fall woods under brazed sun
That bring us grand tidings of this season
Where peace reigns and war has little reason
I saw you with my ears; before my eyes could ever let you in
Felt you deep within my heart; before my fingertips could begin
Fully lost; I found a new spectacular, hopeful; kind of grin
My mind felt piquant; long before my lips ever sensed your soft skin
Your laughter; plays song melody, like an Ironwood violin
Ignoring my blindness; helped me discover your soul, deep within
The 90 year old
Could no longer bend or even lean
Over
His brother’s grave
Stands in the sun with his planted cane
At his elbow
Tells me
He hears his brother speak from the grass
“Bobby, where have you been all these years?”
Dad turns to me
Says when he was 13
And the Army telegram arrived at the house
And his mother and father tore it open
On the Roosevelt porch
He ran down Sutherland Street to downtown Ironwood
With shock if not even a grin
Wired across his face
Shouting from the Walnut-split sidewalks
“My brother’s been killed! My brother’s been killed!”
Haunted
By his youthful exuberance
For all his old days thereafter
Thought he was responsible
For his mother losing her hair
Nest unraveled by a storm
For his father
Never using a razor again
Instead, each morning
Rubbing expressions clean in the sink
With his palms
For the only thing
Left standing
In this near-abandoned mining town
A fifty foot fiberglass statute
Of Chief Hiawatha
Gazing over the passage of centuries
Never lets go of any soul
No matter the crimes against humanity.
The best fire wood to be found
If dried it cannot be split
Extremely dense and heavy
And as hard as nails
Leathery evergreen leaves
Red bark peeling from the trunk
Whitish flowers, red berries
Growing from a cliff
It’s known as the Ironwood tree
But that’s not its actual name
A Pacific Coast native
The Madrona tree
Trees Everywhere Contest
Entry by Charles Sides
Not to far
From our backyard
Grows a large
Ironwood Tree.
Its trunk is carved
With a heart
That holds the love
You promised me.
Every day
I pass that way
Too enjoy the shade
of our Ironwood tree.
To place my hand
Over that scar
To feel the love
You have given me.
When I'm gone
On my stone
Engrave for me
An Ironwood tree.
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