Going Out to Gather
Sunlight doesn’t reach the ground.
The foliage folds around me,
and I am going out to gather.
There are animals and birds here,
the tiny flowers of bindweed and wild radish.
Cones the size of my fingertip.
I am walking out in all of this,
I am going out alone.
I pull my coat close.
It’s waterless, but the evergreens
remember rain.
Maples are green going gold,
gold going red, red burning to rust.
Moss and lichen revise bark and limb.
A crow cruises and watches as I watch her.
She drops a feather.
My fingers curl over my pocketed key.
I am going out to gather.
I am walking out in all of this.
Small animals crush quietly
the leaves and twigs in dark underbrush.
A breeze hushes the tops of the trees.
Sedge flows with the wind.
In a clearing is a swath of unfamiliar light.
The ground is ash, charcoal splinters.
Tree trunks and launches of skeletal berry vines
are charred ghosts.
Someone has been here before me.
The air is acrid with smoke memory.
I release a breath.
Nothing will be kept but the crow feather,
the cone, the moss.
I am going out to gather.
I am walking out alone.
The Random Notes of Autumn
These are the random notes of autumn.
The lostness of birds left behind
when migration ends.
A late honeybee’s wandering stitches.
Persistent crickets in secret leaves.
The miracle of a single acorn falling,
its small wood
still warm,
still remembering its tree.
Carolyn Adams‘ poetry and art have been widely published. She has authored four chapbooks, and was nominated for a Pushcart prize, as well as for Best of the Net 2017. She was a finalist for 2013 Houston Poet Laureate. Recently relocated from Houston, TX, she now resides in Beaverton, OR.