(Poem) Last Fall: Cemetery at Lake Travis by Robin Scofield

One last hour of equinox shines in the still
kneeling forest.
Last rays feel for dark roots over lime-white
rock, waver over red and yellow patches
of overripe trash: coke cans, dry rinds, box springs.
They touch blonde hair, alight on blonde moss
and dance at last ruby refraction
under black cloud and blue sheen.

Rain swirls from the west.
Earth tilts toward orange moon,
sun poised between air and water:
silence, then roar of motorboat,
lines bleeding blue in green water:
and the gold profound moment.

Thunder in the west, ghosts on the hill,
the breast of the mother who bred this place
holds onto the last bits of scattered light.We saw buzzards gather by the road,
caught whiff of rotting corpse in field,
and the hawk, slowly circling,
looking for life:
looking for light
in the leaves and late red flowers
of autumn, until the longest night
and the coldest daybreak song will come:

In reams of night the rain of fire
descends, and the thousand explosions
shatter the church spires and tunnels and towers.
After the black rain, the wolf kisses the dolphin.
The son of light stands ready on the hill
come down from the bat-winged cloud
to redeem his mother with fire.

The four faced god of wind
lights on the back of a turtle,
in the nest of a mockingbird
in the numbers of a sunflower
in our eyes the whirlpool
galaxy nailed to a crux of heaving stars,
what kingdom of heaven breeding light.

Soon the green wind will bring new black birth.
But not yet, now the gold sun, the gold leaves,
the dark cloud and red sky, the sad charred corn:
the daughter eats fruit in hell,
the son is gathering seeds.