Poetry Thursday.
(Thursday, September 28, 2006)
I seem to be slowing down during these first days of autumn, taking the time to let my eyes follow the upward sprouting of the trees, and delight my senses in lingering upon the changing hues and the crisp scents.
I wrote this poem last fall, when autumn was bringing to mind the days I spent in the apple tree behind my grandmother's house--an old house I had spent so many days within, imagining, growing. When the house was auctioned off last fall, I was sad, and inspired...
On the Occasion of the Auction
Behind the hosue sits perched an apple tree
whose branches cradled me in summer limbo.
I'd read and nap before the sun sank low
enough to summon me inside, wordlessly.
Within, the walls, which hung with fragrant comforts--
of must and yeast and fleshy pipe tobacco--
hushed the locusts' hums, drowsy and slow.
At dark, in bed, I heard the clock's retorts
below me, replying chiming melodies
to answer crickets' songs: The hours, the hours.
The floorboards sighed and settled, lulled into
their wooden skeleton, in quietude
throughout the night. Outside, the fruit tree towers,
stoic, languid, helpless to our pleas.
© Megan K. 2006-2007
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i love this, meg. i was transported back to many summer afternoons at my grandma's house, too. vivid images you've created!
What a lovely, homey poem. It made me feel that very safe feeling I used to have, falling asleep in my bed at my grandparents' home. Listening to the clock - and I could smell the smells of your grandparents' home, oh delicious pipe tobacco!
that was beautiful - full of fall feelings. My grandmother has only recently sold my grandparents' house. Your poem made me remember their house with fondness.. thank you!
"Within, the walls, which hung with fragrant comforts--
of must and yeast and fleshy pipe tobacco--
hushed the locusts' hums, drowsy and slow."
i love the way you connected must and yeast and hushed and hums...such power...it's such a beautiful, still poem.
I felt like a small butterfly perched on your shoulder, exoeriencing it with you.