"After summer, all the wide land
is like an aging woman, her temper
uncertain and fitful, either smiling
appealingly and stretching out her
bony hand, apple polished and fingers
long and yellow, or angered without
apparent reason so that we stumble
over dead things in fields that are
blackened but not burnt and sparkle
so absurdly in the pale sunshine like
cheap jewelry on a tattered costume
in which the old woman is trying to
distract everybody while her ancient
partners in crime, squawking and
flapping their heavy wings, gobble up
the last remaining seeds and fly away."

10/13/2008