by Martin Willitts Jr
August trails across the sky,
rippling shadows.
It is finished raining.
The quiet cold remains,
trees dazed by the sudden changes,
ripen with crisp eminence.
Juncos quiver on maple branches.
Soon, September’s wingspan will darken
and lengthen into drizzle-chills.
Already, the clutch of winter berry
and red holly berries
begin their slow flight of appearing,
preparing for the resurgence of fall.
Floods of geese practice landing
and flying,
eventually leaving,
only to return.
The season warbles.
Days unravel a spool of thread.
Yesterday disappears into the froth-churning,
purpose-driven,
dazzling adrenalin-thrust uncertainty.
During windbreak in the cinnamon night,
the world reduces to incomprehensible silence
under the deadfall of leaves.
Martin Willitts Jr edits the Comstock Review. Nominated for 17 Pushcart and 14 Best of the Net awards. Winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Award; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, 2016, Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2020. His 25 chapbooks include the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including the 2019 Blue Light Award “The Temporary World.” His new book is “All Wars Are the Same War” (FutureCycle Press, 2022).