Where Poems Hide

Somass River in autumn, Port Alberni, B.C.

A poem hides in given words:
vine and web,
and one sees ivy climbing a stone wall,
a fat red spider in a web dotted with dew.

A poem dances across the page,
words like leaves tossed by a phantom wind:
orange
red
yellow,

like sandpipers at the edge of the sea,
moving together as one,
like a row of poppies,
nodding their ponderous heads.

A poem can be enchanting
with fluttering wings:
a grackle, suddenly at the feeder,
a pheasant, startling upwards
out of tall grass.

A poem can be quiet:
a silent room where a grandmother
remembers her first kiss.

The scent of smoke
on an autumn afternoon
takes an old woman back
to walking home from school
in the long ago,
past piles of burning leaves:
orange
red
yellow.

for Shay's Word List: Autumn - my favourite season.