Autumn Rings the Bell

What more can I say. Yes, it aches,

but how dull, all this talk of pain.

I could tell you about the changing season, 

trees hurling bloodstone leaves like mourners 

shedding locks of hair. People love to be 

reminded that this world is also beautiful. 

But I've tired of the words for October’s certain 

slant of light or the sound that wind makes 

beneath the eaves. What could keep me in this

terrible rut but Earth spinning sure as a wheel? 

Pavlov needn’t have turned to torture 

to learn how repetition shapes the mind. 

Who among us hasn’t had our thoughts honed 

down to hunger at the faintest reminder; 

the hour tolls, signals the slow march of 

minutes and we want for a meal or drug, some

color of the sky to ease the scrape of living. 

There goes the wind beneath the eaves again, 

my eyes welling, though often, now, 

I find I can’t recall the source of my anguish. 

I only know I’m meant to rend my clothes 

when the gales blow their tired whistle—

though it could just as well be 

a trumpet or bell. Any instrument 

could sound the hour of grief and spur 

a longing that brings me to my knees.