Month: November 2024

Voices at the Door

Voices at the Door

fingerprints
on the ribbed window pane
crust crumbs
on the kitchen floor
apple cider bubbling
on the stove —

where have the children gone
I hug them in the warmth
of hearth fires,
hear their laughter
in the songs
of the autumn wind —

leaves plummet in violent swirls
like flocks of sandpipers
landing on the shore
topaz and rubies fade
into the salmon sky —

before winter comes
I long to hear
“the steps returning
and voices at the door” .

D. G. Vachal © 2024

* “the steps returning and voices at the door” is a passage from J. R. R. Tolkien’s poem ” I Sit Beside the Fire and Think”

Image by J Plenio @pixabay

Autumn in the Gloaming

Autumn
in the long platinum
light of the gloaming
when pearls of time arrive and depart
with the wind-swept leaves —

I feel your nearness
your gazing eyes are falling stars
from the ebony sky,
your tender voice rustles the fern fronds
as you call my name —

tell me,
have I spoken your name with tenderness
at suspended moments
before the turning of a hundred seasons —

beyond the ocean tides of forgetting
have you come back to remember
what I have already forgotten —

Autumn in the gloaming,
mottled colors
cloaked in the deep purple mist
of my remembrances.

D. G. Vachal © 2024

Image by James Wheeler @ Pixabay