Practice

                    

                        Practice

I practice widowerhood

since you’ve been gone to nurse

your sister for a week.  

Some days are long.  I make

the bed with only my wrinkles

to smooth out and leave your

pillow undisturbed in place

to help recall our last embrace.

                               —Donnell Hunter         

                                               29 October 2021

The Fall

                  

      The Fall

Once more I face the Fall.  Its leaves hold on

one brief moment, then let go.  I sweep

them up and till them into garden soil. 

Rain and snow can come now, though I hope

they allow a few more days of Indian

summer to enjoy these color splotches

fading chloroplasts expose to view.  

Frost and the gathering dark hover

over our lives, one year closer to winter’s

teeth, to the cold earth that waits us all.

                                        —Donnell Hunter

                                                    20 October 2012