Cycling

I kept cycling toward beginnings,
wheeling roadless into blue,
higher than the pleated clouds
that crown the distant ridges
until he’d spring his fears on me
and I’d then spiral down.
I counted scattered crimson flowers
weaving through the matted green,
but he’d tell me it was blood
that I had never seen
correctly.
Back to the start I’d go,
driven by his losses.

Then it was crimson silence,
not a flower anywhere
nor a burst of autumn sunshine
on the muddy road he’d mapped.
He’d want us wrapped together
in his narrow halls.
He sent me cycling toward all endings,
pedaling footless in the snow;
and because I did not know who was right,
if anyone was right,
I finally let go.

Now many years have flown
but again I cycle toward beginnings.
I still wheel upward, scanning the clouds
for a place to peer through,
to get a glimpse of what’s beyond
those ragged shrouds of white.

I look for mirrors in the high still air,
fond of the thought of purpose,
though my mind denies.
Something within cries out for answers
and something external sometimes replies,
telling me the flowers are not blood,
nor is the road all mud,
and the tree is more than wood
for it blossoms in its season
when it should.

It is that time of year
when all the orange and the gold
that filled the trees
have faded down to gray and brown.
The flocks of geese in standard vees
join forces over the smoky land,
circling once, then fleeing cold.

It used to be a time of year
when sadness fell in sleeting rain,
or snow in sooty flakes came down.
Life seemed a dull monotony:
I circled then but did not flee–
no need like geese to find another space
on milder shores
if all would stay the same.

Now autumn with no change of name
wears a different shape and face,
descends with a poignant kind of grace
that seems harmonious, not dull.
It brings a sense of fullness
before deep winter ice begins.
And even then, when life is in deep freeze,
I look out on the barest trees
that house the creatures who stay in place
to find what the season stores.