Scarlet/Indigo
By the pond, a maple
reddens already,
in middle August.
Impossible:
it still should be summer.
Fall’s upon us.
Much endures, it’s true,
yet how hard, no matter,
not to sense a shadow,
as the old do.
Here at the edge
of our late-shorn meadow,
small baubles shine:
five blackberries strung,
more dark than just blue,
on stiff canes
gone leafless. The berries
should have vanished by now.
Brush bends in a breeze
that contains a slight chill.
Though tiny and poor,
it’s sweet,
the fruit, even more so
than when I found more.
SYDNEY LEA – former Pulitzer finalist, winner of the 1998 Poets’ Prize, Vermont Poet Laureate (2011-15), and founder of New England Review – is author of 21 books, with two forthcoming. Read More