A Falling place

A Poem

Wet, sliding leaves underfoot Smell like youth, dragging a cart of apples Out of the grove

Tossing apples into the press, peeling callouses Off your hands, chunky skin falling away Clean, fresh, and aching in the waning light

Crisp tearing and crunching Nectar flows, each twist a strain, groaning Shoulders, nostrils full of dank air

Soggy fires smoke and fog as you fill your cup With acidic sweetness Your uncle rakes across swollen grass Leaves into the fire

A murder of crows lingers overhead, Patient for the dying.

Your cousin makes a small fire, you sit around on logs, drinking fresh cider a Hunter’s moon rises over the trees new and mysterious

a wind rustles crackling leaves in restless branches trees groan and ache in the twilight oranges and blues flicker on the pine boughs that you placed on the flames

You talk of childhood summers making lean-tos in the forest tracking foxes in the underbrush Warm cookies waiting on the kitchen table when you return

full of wonder and mystery to tell your Father of the day you’ve had His wide eyes and trickster smile, as he thinks of his time whittling a stick into a smaller stick

Today you sit on your porch, grey and purple lines of a fading sun sink on the horizon, your son sits next to you asking if you’ve ever built a shelter in the woods.