In mid-fall, when thoughts swing wide
And the years I've served my fate
In roles as a storyteller's aide—
Closing rhyme's banging gate—

Revive in me the need to run
To the high road in a high wind
And listen as stories intimates told
Build like grain in a bin;

The first and worst are of death of course,
The next and dearest sweetest
Are of love and loss of love,
For nature never treats us

As we wish and shame and wanderlust
Invite the story's end
As death revives the urge to live,
To turn about the trend;

Outside my pickup window, trees bend
At the waist, shed cells of red
As climbing buntings, clipped by a wind,
Skid sideways like flung dread;

And I am a singer in the night,
A dying note not yet dead,
A channel of chattel blowing free,
My microphone my head.