something should have been said
gutters clogged in these reaches of a sizzled summon
these branches aloft as scission.

i turn quiet the lure makes a leaf of copper beech
a barter of body for mind,
sculpting with fingers instead of words
carving out places where
the trees are burning.

this is. the and. and the big singing autumn wind. this is. about the seizing and
what allows the sum of a murmur. this is. about null. about all. a bough falls.
all is dying with color exhaling into coldness. this is. inarticulating.

At the end of a season the coordinates I cannot plot
colors yellow orange red
Moaning on my skin  full of horizon, light on dried grass
wanting exits into autumn.

Closed my curtains,
let you in to a place that should be a tree
deeply rooted in some ground freeze.
A warm mouth to the navel, an earth
hibernal, where I am not wanting to peck at the dead grass.

Yet I find that I am flapping from branch to branch
trying to get between limbs
and there is no way release to wind
or a deep chirping.

Taking morning flight was never all that lonley
in a new mapskin of sky, ruffled feathers
Where we are just feeding like a wild birds in winter
and still famished from the seed left out by strangers.

Abandoned hives,
The skin of a bear
hit by a car.
Her rusted out shanty
With a  radiator.
A skull placed perfectly in a tree.

The walls and sap lines
Show the lines
That curve of the body
of property,
between here there is Hartley hill
where an old lover lived.
I’ve walked clear
to Nukems field,
wanting to make love
but afraid of trespassing;
wearing boxer shorts, hiking boots
and an old hunting jacket.
It was close to four miles
For the collapse of a pull-out couch,
His grandfather was dying,
We drank lots of whiskey
Making sad love.
­­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________________________________________
We drank whiskey while we cooked
Made fires with our hands
Attempted scalloped potatoes
And found a dead mouse.
Drove here to sit in front of a fire for two days.
It’s a good idea when you don’t have a fire normally.
You screamed out in to the night, I DON’T FUCKING CARE!!!!!
About family, inheritance, living a life outside of wealth–
You asked me if you thought humans could just be self-sustaining,
I said no, not without breaking their backs.
In the morning you didn’t wake me,
I asked you why, because the sky was so faultless
Orange-purple smeared the windows,
You said, I didn’t want to disturb you.
During the day we slept and looked at old playboys.

I’ve cultivated gardens on this hill.
Tobbaganed my heart out,
Cut wild rhubarb.
Hypnotized by kileidescopes of green,
frozen in the trees,
waking to crackling eggs
snowblind, young and sexual.
Deer dead and hanging,
Scrubbing potatoes.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­They moved her from Grace Cottage
saying there wasn’t much progress,
she was taking morphine.

You moved her to a nursing home on Monday.
She built this place with her own hands,
you cried hard on the phone,
I was waiting tables—trying to find words
trying to understand you and your mother;
how you cooked them meals when she was sick,
even though she beat you when you were a child.
You spent your childhood on this sad hill,
Away from the world
before they had people being paid to take care of them
you cared for them.
You sob the way I sobbed when I was a teenager.

Life on this hill is quiet,
There isn’t a sound unrecognizable,
I wish for its silence today.
The rotting roof,
Buckets of sugar sap from the line,
The snags of childhood nostalgia