Redemption Song

Finally fall.
At last the mist,
heat's haze, we woke 

these past weeks with

has lifted. We find 

ourselves chill, a briskness 

we hug ourselves in.
Frost greying the ground.

Grief might be easy
if there wasn't still
such beauty — would be 
far simpler if the silver

maple didn't thrust 
it's leaves into flame, 
trusting that spring 
will find it again.

All this might be easier 
if there wasn't a song
still lifting us above it,
if wind didn't trouble

my mind like water.
I half expect to see you 
fill the autumn air
like breath —

At night I sleep
on clenched fists. 
Days I'm like the child 
who on the playground

falls, crying
not so much from pain 
as surprise.
I'm tired of tide

taking you away,
then back again —
what's worse, the forgetting 
or the thing

you can't forget. 
Neither yet —
last summer's 
choir of crickets

grown quiet.

Kevin Young