Song For Autumn
- Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

. . .

Aspen Pole Fence
- David Lee, So Quietly The Earth

The aspen poles crisscross, a zig-zag line
slicing the dry belly of the meadow, five high
at one hundred twenty-degree angles compounded.
Such waste in a pragmatic sense.  Consider
materials: five aspen poles per section at, say,
twenty feet per pole.  With angles, six sections builds
approximately eighty feet of fence, a net loss of two
sections, ten aspen poles.  But the gained strength.
And durability.  Chester said the old Horse Valley
fence stood seventy years, which means fifty, until
Forest Service knocked the east side down, let
Job Corps put up sheep mesh, which went over
in the second year’s snow.  And the aesthetics.
Gods.  The beauty of a cross pole fence in autumn.

But the trees.  The beautiful aspen cut wholesale
for such a piece of geometry: five poles per section
when one pole equals one tree once living now
one pole.  Chester said there are plenty of aspen
in the first place and in the second some things
have to be sacrificed in the name of progress
and in the third that land belongs to him.  Which
means the trees.  Unless they can find a way to leave.
Which is why he built that fence in the first place:
so things wouldn’t be getting away.  They’re only
trash trees.  You can’t get rid of them when you try.

Why is it that for some things there is partial sacrifice,
while others are required to give up all?  At night I can believe
shadows of aspen trees grope along the far side
of the fence.  I have not gone to see.  In autumn,
when aspen spread the earth gold, I can think
the grey skeleton sprawling across yellow grass
is a good thing, Chester’s fat sheep mindlessly
following its confines from one corner to the next,
to water, and back out toward the fence.
A completion, a perfect holding pattern.  Then
always I see its direction: the aspen grove flowing|
down the west hill, a twisted grey arm stretching
out toward the glistening splash of autumn color.

. . .

I set off tomorrow on a six-month road trip around the southern U.S. Travels with Ada.
I plan to continue to publish as regularly as in the past, but at different times during the day or evening as life on the road permits.