FALL

Fall is the time span

to read Whitman's "Leaves
of Grass" to man up

or be mowed down

when passing a touch football
over strawberry fields

after a half hour of rest
after hearing our neighborhood's
laughing chorus of songbirds
with their grackle of sounds
as two mourning doves
a warbling and meadow larks
on the slate roof
begin to sing above us

feeding on rock garden phlox
by sunflowers and yellow mums
we jam into jazz

with my sax riffs of sax
on hedges of forsythia
near woody gazebo grounds
by the music bandstand
at daybreak in a circle
of first light
by Japanese yews and shrub
as we relax on benches
covering pea green lawns
of the golf course,
huge turtle suddenly dives
into the ditch water river bed
I'm already boarding my kayak
for the mid-Atlantic
catching blue fish or salmon
after our croissant repast
a delicious confection
now stretched out on a hammock
by a breeze's quilt
at our early clocked out business
feeling no missed guilt
for leaving Fred, the cat
by our now fenced in gate
at our open window Cape
hearing music outdoors
as the cat hears young Igor
the pianist swaying to Chopin

before Stefan and Eve arrive
at three in the afternoon

for our daily seminar
to share their enterprising words

for our poetry class

at a house call at the lawn
and we realize the daily news
on the house steps
survives another headline
wishing there were no more
rumors of war
as we are in reflection
by the tall dunes
relaxing by cherry blossoms
by trembling hilltop slides
and playground swings
near the greensward valley
even contentedly surprised at all
to sum up at our own deadlines
that we can no longer ignore.