Autumn Falls

by Heather Bourbeau

 

I.
Smoke has made room for rains, 
and I want to stave the yellowing  
of leaves on my apple tree.
I want my persimmons to wait
just a bit more.
I want time to savor 
what I knew and still forgot 
was breathtaking.

II.
Is this where the dog died—
under an arbor of manzanita and lichen?
Sap of felled pine frozen 
like palm lines
waiting to be read
and recognized as time cut short
like memories
or bird bone divinations.

III.
This was a grinding rock,
that was a shellmound. 
Each day, each step 
we walk unaware over graves.

IV.
The chickens are gone. 
There are no more eggs for the blue jay 
to steal.
And yet, he comes, 
makes way for the crow and squirrel
who strip my branches bare.

And I, I rise and feast 
and still I want more.

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Heather Bourbeau’s fiction and poetry have been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Cleaver, Short Édition, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and the anthologies Nothing Short Of 100: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story and America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Sixteen Rivers Press). She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. She is finishing a collection of 100-word stories called Tart Juice.