Tuesday
25 April 2017

— so early the wood-doves are yet asleep in the upper branches.

Good Morning All,

I am early today because I have to take my car in for inspection at 10:00 a.m. According to a letter dated February 2015, I am somewhat overdue. Just my luck the constabulary will catch me on the way. They will pull me over, snip off my license plates, write me a hefty ticket, and advise me to call a tow truck. I suppose I could try saying, “Gee, officer, what’s a couple years among friends?” But I suspect that wouldn’t work.

It must be time I sent a poem, not least because the little blighters have been piling up.

First comes the poem itself, and then after that—if this sort of thing interests you—where it came from. But really, only if it interests you. If it does not, don’t read what comes after the poem, since it may diminish the poem for you.

Red Leaf on the Wing
Bheka Pierce

Call me nuts if you like, you’ll not be the first;
I’ll still bet you a buck the very last leaf
On our tallest maple waited in the sharp
Light of this October morn for me to put on
My hat and jacket, waited for my wife to
Follow me out onto our porch to fiddle
With my collar and swipe a bit of shaving
Foam from my ear so that we could together
Witness it bird-like taking flight and falling,
Enjoy its flutter and glide, caught in the sunlight,
Applaud its float and flip and slide, wind whirled,
Wind lifted, spectacularly—if briefly—triumphant
Before--I swear to God—it sailed into the safe
And entirely kindred harbor of my wife’s red hair.

This poem comes from three places:

1. When I was eight or nine, a walk to my grammar school during which I saw a woman follow her husband out onto their front porch, adjust his collar, and then kiss him right on the lips right out there in public view. Shocked was I to the bottoms of my yankee sneakers.
2. A day in college when I looked out a morning window and saw a last leaf let go and enjoy its brief swan song. (I did write a poem about that, but it was one of those visual affairs such as a poem about the Eiffel Tower looking on the page like the Eiffel Tower. My poem was shaped like a tree and/or a leaf slipping through the branches. Like most of those visual efforts, it looked still-born.)
3. A late October day walking in a wood with Britta when a red leaf did wonderful—very nearly spellbinding—things.

So, the poem is not fiction, but an amalgamation of my history. 

I hope you liked it. If you didn’t, that’s okay. I would be the first to admit it is not Stopping by the Woods on a Snow in the Suburbs Evening.

But if you have gotten this far, I can’t help asking if you now wish you didn’t know from whence it came. 

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron