When I was four,
ten thousand birds would fly
over uptown New Orleans on variegated fall
afternoons,
the sky closing down faster in its
pantomime of purple.
Cool October evenings know when it is time
to surrender.
I wanted only to float into this chevron migration
and beat my wings in iambic pentameter to
swell a scene or two.
Wise in the ways of equinox, they knew
that Ecclesiastes
had nothing to say about this time between
times.
A different October canopy spreads above
me now,
but I do not seek the escape of a childhood
sparrow rhyme.
I sit on a bench and roll into brush
strokes on the horizon,
marveling at the broad parameters of dusk.
And yet it is not time to surrender to the
cool change
tapping on my bones or seeking closure for
my brain.
There are many skies to travel yet, many
hills to climb.
~William Hammett
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