Poem

The way your lover fall has stood unbalanced in the back drop of Vermont, scattering all his leaves amongst the wool and jackets (Smells of crisp); cold were Grandpa Carl’s glass eye visits and Cousin Jack too, the green Ford pickup truck- all the way to New Hampshire. Her kisses are the sweet flower nectar of the great oaks and maples of this land.
And Fire never bloomed?
I remember when I was ten years old; I walked the land with Dad.
-This five acre patch was my great grandfather’s.
He said
-Was it always on fire?
I said
-As long as I can remember.
He said
-This land screams toothless.
He said
-I know
I said
-I don’t know how Whitman ever heard singing; She is always crying salt tears of her evenings in recluse.
I said

Silently
The fields were ours to sew the ashes of my grandfather
I awoke this morning to find blue-jays eating the remnants of a claret sky.
I ran into the streets crying about the collapse of it all,
The very sky was disintegrating above.
I remembered that people drank cigarettes
Smoked coffee and cider
Although it was askew I smiled and pretended that he was ok.
He was transforming equine before everyone’s eyes.
He had blinders and feed given to him by the general public,
Issued by general mills in cardboard packages with sleeping pills and plastic toys that made his day.

It is my favorite season-
One of boots, scarves, and theater.
Outside is the exuberantly gaudy fashion exhibition full of drag and queeny figures flaunting boughs in flamboyant hues of rusted mustard, sweetened crimson, and royal bronze.
These are days when I wait for the mail
On the bench
Beside the blueberry bushes,
When the rain clouds hang
Like pending arguments that never settle.

He never looked at the roots of a tree, but I know they are beautiful works of nature. People make comparisons to ice-bergs as if they were the crystallized daguerreotypes of perfection, but a tree is the same in respect to the paradigm of glass. Think of a tree as the reversed replication of this image. The surface is a beautiful bouquet, while,
Underneath,
In the dirt,
Is the song of toil heard in the catacombs of deciduous forests.
They are the unseen forces of the masses,
They are the fingers and thumbs,
They are the single mother working the night shift,
They are the grandfather and his magnificent beard of history,
They are the immigrant dishwasher making minimum wage overtime while attending ESL two nights a week,
They are the father with children in school and retirement funds depleting,
They are the inner city youth in a uniform of release,
They are the philosopher.

Show me that we won’t fall
Show me that this isn’t a fall
Show me that I can’t fall
Show me the beauty in falling
Show me how to fall
Show me where to fall
Show me when to fall
Show me which fall is which
Show me that falling is necessary
Show me that falling can be melodramatic
Show me what time I will fall
Show me all in fall
Fall with me

Red and yellow ones
Turn over the blustery
Wind, all drops as such.


-Antonio Hernandez