Fallen

Fallen

By Dr. James Murphy
08-31-09

Wind out of the Nor’east
on any other day
would have brought snow
falling fast as a furnace blast

A lone maple seed pod
arrives through the doorway
asking plaintively -
“ Can I stay? Might I stay?”

I sweep open the French windows
before the dinner table, of cupboard behind allayed;
stacked with checkered, tattered tablecloth
that has seen many a better day.

And the brilliant light
of a further-away Sun
alights upon a vacant white Adirondack chair -
sitting alone most quietly there.

But there are tasks that beckon
louder and though I,
an inside writer,
plaintively hear their calls

We do what we can
with excess paper
and empty-inked pen
to establish the beginning of Autumn

Autumn’s pen name is like
a legion of leaves
resigned to make
their signature Fall ... and fallen away

And from their birch and beech congregation
giving in to their eventual decay.
Offspring sprung, far-reaching flung -
where a tree’s hands, fingers and gloves lay

This cabin holds leaves in its attic
stored there by a squirrel
red
with indignation.

She must share her apartment
with new neighbors downstairs
amid a lofted hegemony
above the beer coaster squares

I reason with her
that my dressing drawer has lower citizens,
denizens to the floor who
arrived through a wholly different door

A mother, maternal mouse
and her naked few ...
I‘d not disturb them amid the sacred down,
in the squirming hush of a church pew

The back porch is arthritic at best
but sturdier still
than any rodent nest
but the dry rot beams below need ardent paying attention to

The old man well along in years
comes down to visit me
and with beers we sit
and watch the loons