Cry of the Stars

The year is tilting again, spilling days
like this: the steady light, the falling leaves,
the slow decrescendo of cicadas at night
and the ages-old sensation of
wrapping up the world,
days ripe for harvest, days
in quiet transition, days like this.

Out in the fields there are hay bales dreaming silently
and pumpkins stretching under vines;
beneath the highway bridge the Brandywine has dwindled
in low water and will soon swell with the autumn rain,
savoring the thrill of rushing motion before
midwinter comes to still its currents in ice.

In dark, heavy bunches, round grapes
sweeten in the high sun, waiting for workers in
dust-stained denim, in canvas gloves and
sunbrowned skin, to strip them from the trellises
and haul them to crush,

while storefronts wear glittering foliage
in manufactured colors,
cheap reflections of the glowing forests
that will be practicing their horizontal symmetry:
the trees will blossom earth and clay
into the sky, then discard drapery
altogether, a bared network
of tangling limbs both above and below,

and I will listen to the geese crying southward—
a cry for the cold wind that carries them
far from here, a cry for the withered grass
and the naked ground, for the going away
of everything in all the years
that have been lost.

Kitchen tables, soon, cradle baskets of apples
and hard-shelled winter squash, sweet potatoes
and sweet corn, the long summer’s bounty,
a rejoicing in life that in its dying
gives life again. Sour walnut-fruits will drop
blackened from the walnut tree;
bush-tailed squirrels will grow fat
within its branches.

For now, before my bones remember
how to shiver, before the dead leaves settle in
the sidewalk cracks and overflow
the storm drains, there are days like this,
my windowsill like gold every morning
and afternoons that tilt, spilling late-day light
across your face, like the sky itself
had followed where my heart would turn
and found its way home.

The time has come, I am sure,
to let the ropes fall from my chest,
for my heart will soon
be too big to keep in any body.
It may fit in this empty, hundred-walled
house, gorging itself full
on the drippings of honeyed light
pouring from these windows,
sleeping on these warm, bare
oaken floorboards.
I woke up here with you
in a thunderstorm, while outside
young ivy, cold and pale, clung to the wet,
white walls, and great feathery
clouds roared with laughter in the sky.
The lightning splashed on your hair
and cut me open from neck to navel
with the precision of a surgeon,
a scalpel wielded to release
my soul, to let me breathe
again, at last.
I might have wept, but only
because I was happy.
And so this elephant heart of mine
keeps growing, and it laughs, too,
promising to fill these rooms
with flowers and grand-children
and dreams that look us
in the face and smile.
The time has come
to let the ropes fall from my chest.

On odd nights my brain
tips out its contents, tosses them,
tries to cram them back in

but when it's been too long
the memories drip like golden water
through the cracks,

mixed and muddled,
blurring into one another and
flickering behind my eyes

like dreams creeping into
wakefulness. Tonight the aroma
of burnt wood in night air

(just cold enough to
widen my eyes in gladness, not so
frigid as to forbid)

meant dark Maine forests
in summer, meant mountain sunrises
in Taiwan's autumn, meant

the waning of winter now
and the next year and the next.
Tonight the smoke wove

itself into my clothes and
mind, bringing the memory of one
beautiful day together with

all the others I have known.
Tonight I'll lie in bed and breathe in
the lingering, hazy scent

and drink my muddled
golden water like wine.

Beloved,
hold with me a
dim-lit memory:

remember snowflakes on your eyelashes, while
ice cracked under my hair,
and above us the looming sky
leaked tiny white teeth to bite our noses,

slush spattering your boots and
creeping down my collar - and we
went on and on,
too happy even to shiver.

remember a room breathing soft yellow,
which soothed the red from
our cheeks and mingled mutely
with grey in the corners.
the touch of solid wood
through dry socks,

a blanket draped
across three dangling pairs of legs,
tangling us together like
we'd never let go of our laughter;
the warm embrace
of a guitar's broad humming.

we sat, and smiled,
and sang the cold shadows
to sleep.

This is winter’s crawl.
This is the slow breathing of the sky,
the languid drifting of the snow.
This is the old tree’s creaking,
the great bear’s dreams,
the river’s frozen rest.
This is the interruption of motion
and the lullaby of cold,
a lingering pause for us to learn
of the brief ecstasy of numbness.

Beloved,
drink with me this
light-drenched memory:

the dark blur of a watercolor forest
at the field's far end, where
edges of swollen husks hardened
under withering, tea-stained petals
and whispered of colder days to come;

the gentle brush
of pale grass against your neck,
holding your slender throat
and shoulders close in
ancient arms of dust and clay;

a twilight that seemed to stretch forever,
sun-streaks repainting the sky
a hundred times--
each hour, another wine-soaked layer.

a creaking swing,
a bench for both of us,
warm wind like honey in my mouth;

we slept, and oh,
the cicadas' laughing
carried us till morning.

I sigh in wet clouds stumbling,
shedding rain from my tongue
and snowflakes from my teeth.

Storms slip, rings from my lips:
my churning kisses to the earth.

I smile lightning, laugh thunder, spit hail;
let Heaven help you when I frown.

In the time it takes from mountain's top
to beaten sand, to dust thrown by the wind,
a hundred thousand generations rise,
each defined by 'done' or 'not done',
by revolutions and silence alike,
all, in some way, pleading for the future's eyes:
remember us, for heaven's sake don't forget.
All fall.

A man finds his way to the mountain top.
His flesh is long strands of dry meadow grass,
wrapped tight around his brittle bones of wood.
The wind laughs through the holes in his chest,
but he straightens tattered shoulders and climbs to the peak,
raising a withering hand to the sky.
While the sun breathes deep in its time,
the yellowing strips unwind and turn to smoke,
drifting away on the mountain's long exhale.
Remember us, cry the burning twigs,
and ashes scatter invisible on the stones.

Forever's longer than
a thousand mountain's deaths.
A promise that wide won't fit in
human's tiny leaf-thin skull
or blackened grain-shell heart--
but stands alone on steady feet
and gently stretches cradles 
for our feeble wicker frames to rest.

Sometimes when it rained,
they turned the lights out,
sat and stared up at the ashen sky,
lost themselves in shadows
and the earthen smell of ancient
wooden floors and windowsills.
They savored every ache
of cold and dark and
clouds between them and the sun.

Sometimes the heavens
wept so much, they thought
the world might end.
Alone, they might have
wept along for fear, but
as they were, they sat and stared
and let it come.
They never spoke a word
because the rain was singing
loud enough to wash
the rest of life away.

Sometimes when it rains,
they steal away together still,
and hold hands in that
darkened sanctuary where
the shadows draw them in
to rest beneath
the water's gentle melody
that plays across the roof.

we stacked up smiles
on conversations,
laid nonsense on philosophy,
nailed dreams to
heavy pauses, worked
for hours beneath the sun
and stars and cloudy sky
to fill this hollow shell with love.

sky stretching bright
the sun blazing hot;
new people nicer
than first i had thought.

blue into green
green into blue,
my hand is so tired
from mixing you two.

i guess these all are
memories to keep.
i wrote this lame poem
and crept off to sleep.

My back yard will be
carpeted twice: once with fallen
fragments of Autumn's brilliant death,
and once with blank and quiet hush
of Winter's soothing blankets,
before we meet again.
I wish you all the blessings
that a quarter-year can hold,
and hope to know you
just as well,
when you and holidays return.

Raindrops pouring from
my fingertips
and thunder rumbling from
the keys below,
beat for beat
my music matches nature's,
as the notes drop heavy
on my hungry heart,
and the storm outside is raging
on the thirsty ground,
soaking in and in
and in.
This night is wearing thin,
but my fingers fly like lightning,
coaxing color from
the black and white,
and I don't
want
to
stop.

quick wind is bearing
warm and forest-scented rain
while clouds are still streaked
bright with sun.
earth is drinking in both
light and water,
and I am waiting here
to watch a rainbow's birth.
 

[A/N: Springtime is the best.]

I can feel
fall, settling in my bones.
suddenly
I'm aching to dance
the cold wind's waltz
tripping, skipping with the leaves
I'm longing to fly
the swallow's well-worn path
streaking over flaming trees
and sing
the cricket's last song
under the gentle rain.
At the end of the day,
the fading sunlight illuminates your face,
and here we find
fall, settling in our bones.

-del

Autumn is
A crisp, a clear
A scent of
Apples and cider and leaves and
Autumn itself

Autumn is
A shiver, a shudder,
A feeling of
Autumn rain and cold and warmth and
Autumn itself

Autumn is
A taste, a smell,
A dinner of
A turkey and stuffing and cranberries and
Autumn itself

Autumn is
A sight, a tree,
A beautiful forest
A burst of sudden colored foliage and falling leaves and
Autumn itself

Autumn is

Here.