Larsen Bowker

Elegiac Dialogues Larsen Bowker

AUTUMN IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

Driving through autumn's red and yellow dream--
leaving as it comes-- road leaves kick up and float

in the rear view mirror like notes of a Mozart sonata,
before falling again like bits of paper, reminders

of projects I've started and never finished, friends
I've let slip away and the orange I couldn't imagine

when I was green. Passing through the smoke
of burning leaves, I am wakened to the stranger

I've become to myself since I walked away from a
town between two rivers where I could hold earth

and sky in my hand and every morning Meadowlarks
sang for me alone. Now I ride my fugitive pony

from quarry to cathedral, betrayed and benumbed
by the god who came down to give us glory of flesh

and the gift of sin...then ascended behind steel gray
clouds, leaving me to choose everyday between

hymen and hymnal, moon chalk and sun dust, scream
and sob--carrying, like the wasp, my death inside.