Indian Summer

Apple jelly, wood cutting,

pear pie, windows shutting.

Arms of grapevines growing mounds

arching greens upon the ground.

Buckeyes fruit, late and sallow,

leaves dropping first to fall.

Thick and prickly flesh rises

to night’s sightless icy breezes.

Sun hides, static, pallid

within a seamless, cloudless pall.

The Mother’s hills are

thinned and brown

where soles of summer

have worn her down.

Don’t, yet, give in to the cold.

Don’t, yet, let it take hold.

Put the woolen sweater back.

Rest sandaled feet in the Mother’s talc.

Open the window,

wrap in Her afgan,

draw heated breath

with every the pass of the fan.

Crickets still summon

honeysuckle's song

for Indian Summer

just 
around the corner.