autumn morning

how can ordinary words

describe the sunlit undersides of geese,

or how the swamp maple,

in the first blush of dawn,

thrusts an implausible pink trunk

into the sky?

exactly which upper

and lower case letters will allow you to

feel the bite of the first frost

on your carelessly bare feet

skipping through the wet fire

to the sound of syncopated honks?

hours from now

unless these observations are

fixed on the open sky of the page

who will understand how your

shadowed footprints melted

into the dying grass

or how the great birds were swallowed

by the rising light?