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The Blooms of Fall
by Marianne Szlyk

The sunburst's orange, rust and brown
burn into a turquoise door.
The last of the day lilies blanch
beneath this clash of color.

Hard green and white shields
armor the street tree.
The moss named British soldiers
musters in the bark below.

Tendrils cling to live oak,
the ghost of Walt Whitman,
lingering where young men at the college
sprawl, play ball, loiter, or loaf.

Other gray strands, the ghost of Li Bo,
dangle from a silver tree to the west.
In its shade, the red-haired scholar
memorizes poetry in Chinese.

A whole world in red, green, gray,
and orange blooms on pieces
of bark from trees fallen in silence,

on rocks made from the beginning of time.

In fall, in miniature, in moss and lichen,
another whole world is still blooming.

 


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