and you say you want to be
somewhere else—a city

with energy, somewhere
besides this grief of leaves.
 
Geese have been watching
the sky too, wanting
 
to go anywhere
the moon is going.
 
All month the trees have been shining           
with a certain kind of light.
 
There must be a needle in the heartwood
that pulls them through this quilt of loss. 
 
Almost November and I want to be
nowhere else but here.

Here where the branches ache
with the cold ebb of light
 
and the juncos
fly in from the north
 
on winds
dependable as breath.
 

This poem first appeared in Fox Cry Review.
Used here with the author’s permission.