Withering toward winter

I love how poetry can enhance a moment. This weekend, winding through the vineyards on the way to the coast, this poem of Robert Mezey’s came to mind:

Touch It

Out on the bare grey roads, I pass
by vineyards withering toward winter,
cold magenta shapes and green fingers
and the leaves rippling in the early darkness.

Past the thinning orchard the fields
are on fire.  A mountain of smoke
climbs the desolate wind, and at its roots
fire is eating dead grass with many small teeth,

When I get home, the evening sun
has narrowed to a filament.  When it goes
and the dark falls like a hand on a tabletop,
I am told that what we love most is dying.

The coldness of it is even on this page
at the edge of your fingernail.  Touch it.

Robert Mezey

I was shocked that he is not listed on either the American Academy of Poets or Poetry Magazine sites! Someone is not doing their homework.

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