It's fall, so I was thinking about this one yesterday on the drive back from my parents' place, seeing all the shorn fields and autumn colors.  Love this time of year, but always feel sort of a wistful, "losing something" feeling in the fall as well. 

Dirge After Harvest

Fields stretch:

stripes on a pheasant’s tail feather,

dusted sanguine and sepia.

Gravel crunches as I slow the car to a stop,

and I see my breath smoke.

Dusk thickens, glows, reddens.

Half-blind, I take heavy footsteps

over the frosted plow-furrows,

shins bumping shattered cornstalks.

I am tugged toward sunset.

A flicker of motion,

and a fox runs from my headlights,

urgent.  I resist

the pull to follow it

into the broken maze of summer’s bones.

The sun strains at its pulley-ropes,

lowered by roughened hands.

An orange bucket drops

into the well of night.

I am drawn down with it—

searching for the sun’s circular ripples,

searching for water.