Yesterday
we picked bright pumpkins from a
trailing vine of green
and golden maples flicked afternoon
light on your honey head of curls.
Today
we slog through pallid leaves,
you a bundle of fleece and boots,
while naked limbs shiver, entire
trees sway. And you point upward
into only grayness until
I see
A hundred birds pass by.
When I step out in the evening
light, I find him, our blonde boy,
giggles and kicks,
puckered lips, blowing
handfuls of feathered seeds upward
toward tree tops and the reddening
sky. Wind-lifted swirls
beyond this red brick house.
Even when the season’s right.
How could I miss the tender
unrolling, the flushing toward
sun? I’ve walked this garden
‘round each day as I’ve held
you since birth. A part of me.
We are one, I thought,
until I stopped in color’s path
And wondered at the change.
