Two Poems by Rodney Nelson

9 Mar 2013

Day Fall

 

for seaj

 

it would happen in the afternoon’s aging

with sun on the wall and no movement

 

 

an abrupt yet intricate modulation

of temperature humidity and light

 

 

a resettling down in the air too quick to

catch ahead of its effect on the garden

 

 

nicotiana with a richer smell now

and more impendent gold in the one stray cloud

 

 

I would have been alone with me and good at

day fall but in vacancy the next minute

 

 

the mere wooden bench at the wall not the same

where an other had waited to turn and look

 

 

the aging of afternoon would make it my

own again and refix me in solitude

 

 

a way to hold onto the rest of my time

and the evening come out not down or yet

 

Fall Omen

 

a day after the hunting moon you went

to find an omen that remained of it

and did not watch the women bead and quill

with bone hairpipe and stitch and out in the

hills were river and lake in too-late flood

 

 

the hanging leaves on them too evident

whatever the fade of red or yellow

or of midday light and even the too-

rich grasses were maintained in a wait for

an autumn wind to make them weathercock

 

 

in the mud and mist of a trail you would

have sung to the averting or delay

but it led to an open drumlin height

and change in view and sky and the wait’s end

and that was all the moon had omened of

 

Photo credit: jenny downing (flickr) via Creative Commons