Travelers Welcome

Travelers Welcome

Sunday, November 9, 2014

October Death

by Ralph Monday

October in Tennessee, the fields
speckled with wildflowers like
pennies shook from a piggy bank:
goldenrod, swamp thistle, ironweed.

Frost will soon take them, crusted
white like sea salt, dying seeds
scattered by the wind fretfully
finding root for hoped resurrection.

You are dead to me. I cannot grow you.
Your leaves crumpled, sickly brown
forest rot spread over black tree roots,
perished stone, abandoned, dry, insect husks.

You do not bloom for an artist’s love.
Yours is the Judas season.
The quiescent center spat upon,
Nothing can bloom from your tangled roots.

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