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November
I follow my footsteps
around the lake.
Darkened branches,
statues outline the cadet sky.
I can hear them: listless-
others say, pursue.
To reach me, you
trace the fence between
two empty fields. I can demonstrate
with my eyes closed
how this empire
motions outward, ring by ring
in entropy.
Each year, I leave you
with final twists of green,
new mist frozen over delicate brambles,
the turrets.
Walking down the latticed ice
and Monkshood, I listen to
the pauses between our moments:
What I once wanted, you said to me,
is now my sentence. I am born
when everything
begins to die.
Your words dissolve in frigidity,
like particles of light
reaching the
insurmountable darkness
which begins the end of their abilities.
I hear you
as these crisping leaves
affect your stealth entrance
upon the world,
days moored at your side.
Having instilled
autumn, I bequeath
this pond, the rings,
and entropy.
And I take leave
once the statues speak-
From Where I Stand
There are five basic codes of men:
One battling psyche,
of discipline confused with determination.
Another: the lament of over-intellectualism.
Take down the drawings,
the engineered lines of planes
filled with grays, with shadowing
wings on a landscape
and his ghost unpeels from the wall.
One is tapping at the end of the hallway,
as though because my black dress
is fitted over my breasts, my forearms
I should be ready.
One says
when he finds
the precise combination of words
he will achieve mathematically
equivalent emotions from every reader.
This is his life's work.
And the last cherishes all that's left:
The musty scent from open books,
sharp knife of the longing
which marks each end
of amplified beginnings.
Copyright © 2004 Elizabeth Harrison. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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