Migration

Life is migrating. Last weekend nearly 200 Monarch butterflies followed a valley near here on their journey south - they fluttered in a line not far behind my father's house. I didn't see them, but can't help but imagine orange against blue. This poem has nothing to do with butterflies, but it's pertinent, anyway.


Autumn at 5

Weeds curl around ankles-
clouds jump across sky-
storm clouds fat
with heat and air and gray
with left over goose feathers and down.
Hands slide across legs-
a coarse stone bench- stone
sweating from heat,
dripping muddy drops that soaked
into my socks, coloring them black.
I held a tiny fragment of rock to my cheek,
smelled it, ran my tongue
over it to taste the fine salt
and dissolve it between my teeth.
I leaned back, hands spread
like basket handles. It began to rain.