Well

[rejectomorph]

Autumn's light is at its best now, especially when afternoon filters it through the changing trees and it gets another coat of gold. The air smells good, too, now that the rains have the grass growing again. Sunday brings light traffic, and the leaves can be heard as the breeze flutters them. Enough are still green that the sound is as soft as the air, and enough are already dry that they add a bit of bite to the music. It's that mingling of contrasts that makes a mild mid-autumn day such a delight. Neither summer's oppression nor winter's aggression intrude. Add a slice of warm pumpkin bread with melted butter and a cup of tea, and it's all music to all the senses. Well done, November.




Sunday Verse

Clarinet

by Terrance Hayes


I am sometimes the clarinet
your parents bought
your first year in band,
my whole body alive
in your fingers, my one ear
warmed by the music
you breathe into it.
I hear your shy laugh
among the girls at practice.
I am not your small wrist
rising & falling as you turn
the sheet music,
but I want to be.
Or pinky bone, clavicle.
When you walk home
from school, birds call
to you in a language
only clarinets decipher.
The leaves whistle
and gawk as you pass.
Locked in my skinny box,
I want to be at least
one of the branches
leaning above you.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

What a charming poem! Nice post, too. My daughter-in-law brought over a warm loaf of pumpkin bread for me the other evening. She knew I can't eat cinnamon and remembered that I don't like walnuts in baked goods, so she made it without nuts but with lots of ginger. It was great. I had the sense to freeze a lot of it, to keep myself from fattening up like a bear in autumn. :D

[rejectomorph]

I don't care how fat I get in autumn if it's pumpkin bread that's making me fat. Totally worth it!