From Existence, From Smoke

What is said is said out of unknowing,
The mind’s intuitive leap an act
Of great reserve, an expression lost to

The pronoun-force of the fall.
It’s October here, datelessly still, cold stickle-curling
Itself on windowpanes, frost caking

Down the grass. Renewal stalks like a slow loser,
Lost in its details. I can feel it moping
As I feel it reconsidering, pine-line shot-peened

From existence, smoke tubing like sleeves
In the narrow sky. I’ve lost myself in this weather,
What I say and what I don’t say in belief

Of things better left unsaid. Caught in fog, just
Started smoking, Little Goody Two-Shoes’
Two shoes filling with hailstones. What good is

This pocket mirror with no light to fill it? she asks.
She may have something to keep in mind.
In the harsh light off autumn, winter light once

Removed, a reflection is merely a copy…
But what is said is said falling,
As children fall, faceless, down in the leaves,

No gamble, no residue in that earthen mixture
Of the flashing point by point.