October

There is a road the year forgets.

It leaves the last houses quietly,
narrows beneath trees
that have begun to loosen their light,
then disappears where an old stone wall
leans into the field.

Beyond the wall,
October remains.

Rain has darkened the gate.
Iron reddens at the hinge.
Along the shaded stones,
frost keeps its silver
long after morning.

Inside, the orchard bends
beneath its final sweetness.

Apples loosen in the night
and lie bruised among the grasses,
their skins broken open
to wasp and rain.

The trees do not mourn them.

They stand with their branches lowered,
giving back one leaf,
then another,
until light passes freely
through what summer kept hidden.

Farther in,
the field has given up its grain.

Stubble catches the evening,
each broken stalk holding
what light the field has left
before the dark receives it.

Birds gather along the fence.

Their bodies turn together
at some instruction
the earth cannot hear.

By morning,
the wire is empty.

Only the wind remains,
moving through the place
their songs had occupied.

October keeps that too.

Below the orchard,
roots draw the season inward.

They gather rain,
the mineral sleep of stone,
the last warmth held beneath bark.

Seeds settle into the earth,
small and wordless,
carrying green within them
where no light can reach.

Nothing here is finished.

Beneath the wall, leaves darken
where rain has pressed them
against the stone.
Their veins still hold
the shape of summer,
though the green has gone from them.

The leaf has left the branch
but has not yet become earth.

Beyond the empty field,
grain lies gathered in the barn,
while broken stalks bow
beneath the evening damp.

The field is no longer harvest
and not yet winter.

Somewhere, a fire has gone quiet.
Smoke thins above the distant trees,
and beneath the cooling ash
one ember keeps its warmth.

Dusk gathers between day and dark
and belongs completely
to neither.

This is the law within the wall:

what falls is gathered.

Along the orchard floor,
apples soften into grass.
Rain enters the broken places.
Seeds settle deeper
beneath the weight of leaf and loam.

Nothing is hurried.

By evening, mist gathers
between the trees,
filling the hollows
where the orchard falls away.

The gate grows difficult to see.

Beyond it,
the year continues.

Rain hardens into winter.
Smoke rises from distant chimneys.
Bare branches silver beneath snow,
and somewhere beyond the hills
the first green begins again.

But here,

fruit still carries
the last sweetness of summer.

Frost writes its brief language
along the stones.

Roots keep their counsel
beneath the soil.

And October holds open the gate
while evening settles through the orchard,
while rain gathers in the hollows of stone,
while beneath the fallen leaves
roots draw the season inward—

keeping what has fallen
and has not yet
become.