Whose dusty boots are those,
standing at attention
in the car stripped of its plumage
near the desecrated rag?
The ground, so hard in the winter sun,
a pellet in the soft heart
of a warm-breathing deer,
masks death with a facade of glory,
and a worm, frozen to the wood
of an old tree’s casket,
falls without a sound as tribute.
Hubless tires, like so many
travelled eyes among shapes
in this graveyard above the brookpond,
stare at the sky, unspinning,
perhaps forever; and, in their shadow
a stalwart weed pokes its tongue
through the jagged mouth of a rusted can,
mocking the symbiotic plan.
Below, the water, robbed of beauty,
mirroring the hillside’s desolation,
drains drip by drip and drip back toward the heart.
On the last day of October,
I caught the water lilies crying.
Not too long thereafter came the ice.