JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

After a bounteous summer

the apple trees are shedding leaves

lifting shaking limbs

gold and russet garments drift

to windblown heaps

fallen fruits yield rotting fragrance

sinking into earth’s clay embrace

 

Brown skinned branches lift

their nakedness hiding prayers

of buds, new sap that will flow

mothered by a distant spring;

secrets difficult to grasp in

hide and seek light

of a year’s end  moon

 

I see mystery, riddles posed

in restless patterns of leaves.

Beyond the orchard fence,

lies the cemetery

where each year that passes

we decorate your stone with

new garlands that dry and disperse

in wind, no trace remains

 

I pause for a minute by the grave

tell you how the children are

and that I miss you, talk about the

earthquake they are predicting

perhaps this year, perhaps in fifty

 

A wind is rising from behind the hills

it gives no answers, the light is lessening,

winter approaches. The dog pulls hard

on the leash, he wants home