Memories

During the summer, I was gung-ho about my blog. I remember how excited I was to be linked at other blogs and still am. But September came and school started with classes to attend to. And I do love teaching. In the process, however, I've neglected Gravity and Light, stepping in now and then to post a poem and say I'm here. I have no holiday poem though I shall post a poem written about two years ago in honor of my father and recalls a time when my experience was still fairly unmarked by life's passing. So I dedicate "Blackbirds" to our memories.

BLACKBIRDS

Like a canopy of darkness
they shadow the ground for miles
on currents that lift them
back to their roosts.

Years later I ask my father
if he gathered us
to watch thousands
swoop down on trees
sit wing to wing
until morning branches cracked
under their weight.

At daybreak did they leave the oaks
bare?

He says we never saw them abandon the hollow
catch a new wind to an unharvested south

but often would pile into the car to see their return
black streaks on the upward drift
of a September afternoon.