Daybreak

How sweet

O, how scrumptious-sweet this season's apples
picked by hand from heavy branches bowing down

and how bitter-fowl in a month or two
if left uneaten

Basketful of apples

Out of sight ― a basketful of apples ―

imagined in my lap. 

Blind be_Fall_en

rose bereaved, blind be-
fallen by Sun's departure

Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Welcome Fall 2015!

At the old table

At the root

I acquire Grandmother's eye-

glasses wrapped in a handkerchief
place them on the old
kitchen table, watch them gaze 

at what she might have seen last

(with) her heart weakening

a wavering light abruptly quenched

some thirty years ago ―

through an open-wide window
a black bird in flight

a bare upside-down tree

planted in heaven by winter

dreaming of spring

to invert /

What's left behind

We will gather again

at the old grandfather's table

as an ancient thread-

bare hand leads [me] forward

whence I came ―

By the grace of our age
and the blessing of an earnest soul
this does not end here
not now, not yet
(except the pain)

Constellation

raindrops on a rose leaf ―
heaven at the root

Figs

(to my Grandfather)

One by one, seeds between my teeth

a handful of sapid figs straight from the tree —

melliferous drops sticking to my fingers

burning my lips, nature's goodness

biting my tongue —
.

Thank you, Grandfather!
Seldom are the things
you left behind, mostly rubbish

piling in the barn — rusted century-
old farming tools, twisted metal, warped wood
under decades of black dust) barren fields
once lavish-green, bent heavy with crop
tirelessly worked from dawn to dusk —
these are not
what have you remembered daily, but the promised
house you built from the ground —
a beating heart-h for the lives of others to happen
the laughs, the sorrows, the many
fruit-bearing trees you planted —

apples cherries pears plums

vines laden with clusters of crazy-sweet pearls
that one fig tree in the corner by the fence

reminds me of you, Grandpa, with fondness
as I pick a fig, fill my palm with season's ripeness
taste the heavens in my mouth, at the root
today tomorrow
each day at harvest I bow to you
and say: Thank you!
.
(and to myself: It's time. You must start planting.)

Well-nigh th[r]ee