This Day, This Season

Grey day, November day.  The last holdout 

tree has let nearly all its leaves fall.

Its shadow a skeleton.  

I keep learning the lessons of seasons:

time’s illusionary stoppage,

my desultory notice not equal 

to the moment, my regret 

of the obvious.  The wrong desire 

for one season to go faster,

another slower when all that’s 

being asked of me is to take 

what is given.  I will try to take

this grey day, this November day

into me and turn the dreams 

of spring away.  “Not yet,” I whisper

like a secret promise that can’t be broken.

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoetry.com

Once Again

The rain and wind have visited the trees

once too often -- the branches nearly bare.

The ground covered in leaves.  An IOU

Nature gives: what falls down rises again.

I say to my heart, “Hear that?” and I feel

the blood warm a bit, the pulse gets stronger.

My eyes and ears sharper, my soul freer

because of the barer trees, the wind against

the house: a library of memories, dreams,

the feathering of time and eternity 

into one another as I say, “Here now,

always now” smile at such a truth, such

a lie.  Such is life.  This falling and rising,

this blurring of seasons – no ends, no beginnings.

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowlpoety.com