Fall by Sam Hatch

By Sam Hatch

Scattered yellow leaves And trees standing bare There is something that fall demands of me. Ladylike, her fingers touch my hair Motherly warmth oozing out As if telling me about ends, rarely beginnings Fall is a sunset And I am the photographer capturing it My maa asks me not to salute the setting sun A bad omen, she warns And I like any rebellious child, do otherwise. The lavender sky Bows down at the feet of fall And she lets out a chirpy laugh I believe she knows already about spring And budding flowers Poets and their changing muse Rivers and digressing paths Sparrows and the barren windows where they make their nests again She looks at me like a lover does With assumptions and doubts With laughter and unfulfilled vows And asks me to take a seat She has a story to tell But she asks me not to mourn.

She talks about her childAnd how he went away looking for a living "Wasn't this house home enough?" She asks, tears in her eyes Fall, I tell you, is a woman without grace She is clumsy So is her cry And I like that about her It gives me a space where I can be myself.

She then takes the drooping petals of a flower in her hands And sighs out loud "I believe flowers are like humans.they thrive more in love", she laughs sadly I wonder if saying it out loud Helps her accept that some children are never coming back home She then turns around And wind blows through her hair The mountains are standing brown and barren The crops already cut But she shows me the red chillies growing on dry plants A contrast so striking She screams in joy," isn't it looking like me" And I wonder if fall has secrets She keeps burried in her chest Like all of us If she pretends to be someone else to fit in If she was once a thriving summer Who lost in love If her lover was a young man who promised her future And then left for a foreign land While she, dressed in red, with henna on her hands Kept waiting If this is why I was born in her lap To tell her that some of us intend to stay Even when its dark Even when the rustling of the yellow leaves put us to sleep Fall is an old lady now Her wrinkled hands are sewing a sweater for her son

"Winters are out there,I can feel it" she speaks warmly And I nod along like I have nothing to say Her drooped back and bony figure tells me she isn't eating well "Who takes medicines at this age?" She laughs And I witness pain taking shape behind her hooded eyes I take her hand in mine And says something in a hope to sound wise But who can preach her The lady who has seen monsoons pass by I will come back, I promise her And she smiles She knows I won't But I pretend like any other person does When he hears a lot about someone's misery We bid each other goodbye She goes inside her wooden house And I see her disappear for the final time. and to continue some domesticated and already famed bonebreakers -- who translate every imported idea unspeakably literal-ly -- pulled the first guns against real bullets of some who had but billiard cues, another fault in their brains and the pumpkin was crushed before it flowered, our shortened graduation excursion through our shortened land.

39

No one danced with me at the graduation dance for there were thirty-two of us skirts at that language school. My daughter is playing the first tango from the Echelon she follows the music with her left foot, yet we are still in the same drained land, I am dancing to her earthquake in my own path and I know already nothing was ever in vain, that now it is not me, it is she who will pay them my debt