October Larches \ If I Ruled The Air

Alan:  Hackmatack, tamarack, larch: after the maples, after the oaks and poplars and birches brown and fade, in the falling leaves of the hardwoods, the larches turn gold.

October Larches

Our native hackmatack, maligned and weak,

hides, as if shamed, amid the summer’s rout

of trees more honored, though it will peep out

and nod to those who, passing, stop and seek.

Larch makes a quick, hot stovewood, not much more,

unless you count those tough old bended knees

that stiffened many a hull, through many a breeze,

that hailed from town and village round these shores,

but that purpose is done, or nearly so:

today, the careless woodsman knocks it down

to offer light to trees with broader crowns

and straighter stems, or simply lets it go.

Still, I have seen it cup the waxwing’s nest,

and now, as Fall fades, it burns last, and best.

Nancy: If wishes were feathers, you'd find me riding the updrafts at the cliff at Mill Cove.

If I Ruled The Air

Like the black one,

Raven,

with his tilt and lift

with his parabolas

and pauses

with his running down

and his wheeling whirling

knifing back.

If I ruled the air

I would never say, now

Raven, sit and watch.  No.

I would call to the wind,

more!  more!

And I would call to Raven,

come!  come!

Now we can go together.

Ahhhh

if only I ruled the air.