LET THIS NOVEMBER

Let this November dawn
be a morning
of such Keatsian perception
that signs and wonders
will be in our hiking direction
thinking to pause on windows
to watch chimeras of songbirds
hearing cicadas and cardinals
on whatever road we travel
by Robert Frost's birches
on James Dean's cycles
thanking life's moments
for a worthwhile day spent
bemused by glimpsing times
of recluse Salinger in Vermont
for miracles of Kerouac's prose
or visiting Emily at Amherst groves
where we park on the right route
over deep expressway obstacles
by a thick river of cars
off the pike to her cemetery
planting a shoot of roses
from near my rock garden
and along the Cape's riverbeds
to seek in very boundless words
as a cool mortal Beat
and a smooth jazz guy
in my hands, toes and feet
may pardon, circle and disclose
of their memory when the grass
on the golf fields are still green
we will remember the rumor
going round this map and square
that even in our terrifying times
when we are lost in traffic
eyeing the orange and red leaves
in the sponged sunny footfalls
of their Autumn foliage
our aging still life has the art
in a language of humor to share.