A CALLING OF THANKSGIVING HOME

As I stood then as I stand now; staring

at one child’s frosty breath swirling

in rusty leaves of barren elm trees,

near tangles twisted of thistle browned

and grass long entangling a split-rail fence.

Snowflakes dribbling in autistic air

dotting clumps of cornstalks ragged,

stacked and tied alongside vines

of left-over pumpkin. White wintering

coo’s radiating up from the meadow,

near the geometry of water churning,

escaping, over stone and branch broken.

Stringy clouds of hickory smoke waft

from the chimney of my mother‘s woodstove;

betray her apples of autumn potpourri-

whispers to a squirrel rooting through

hickory leaves, and the child’s course parallel

with winged poetry of geese traversing

watercolors of amethyst splashed across

a mid-morning’s sky- imagination, over the moon,

to the crunching of leaves and twig-a frontiersman

loping out of the woods; another year’s thanksgiving

gobbler dangling from his hand, a 12 gauge balanced

on his shoulder, a fatherly grin on his rustic face. . .

As I stood then as I stand now; staring,

out the nursing home window at snowflakes tumbling

about - and just beyond tiny dots of city-starved lights;

candlelit windows, a calling of thanksgiving home.