First Frost

Late, late, mid-October and only now

the cold begins to come. White lines

trace the grain of boards on the porch

and the grass is hoary, a beard turned

abruptly grey.

 

Overhead the sky is cloudless, blue,

blue, and five crows wheel overhead,

harbingers of the dawn, inscribing

their aerial prophecy in looping words

I cannot read.

 

The rising sun, obscured behind a
steel seamed roof, gleams on the leading

edge of their wings, bright, bright, as if

new-sprung from the forge of heaven

and not yet quenched.

(published in Albatross #28, Fall 2018)