October 25*

besieged by the turmoil of autumn

constellations of snowberries
               hung for winter
a few renegade blackberries
               still blooming
brownish moonscape of mushroom
               gills as cold as trout
the lonely creak of chickadees
               against the silence of the migrants

i tumble in the landscape
like a leaf in a tinkling stream
until i descend into the shore of the sound
profoundly hazy, still:

it is almost too much.
i touch the water to my forehead.
it is cold and pure as a stream—
                              that tinkling stream

*Copyright 2010 by Luther Allen. This poem appears in The View from Lummi Island.