October

Today I want so badly to die

but October’s coming, sometime
soon, not tomorrow, not
the following day, but sometime
after August starts to bleed off summer
and the days begin to pale through September,
October will come. 

I hope I make it to October, to that month
when I’m glad to be cool, glad to be
needing a jacket, wondering how
I made it though the heat, happy to be watching
the trees turn and strip themselves
to nothing but bark and bone.

Ah, October, month of memory balanced upon
expectation, with its glimmers
of future want and last gasp days
of comfortable light and clarity — why does October
have to be so far away?  There’s too much fog
in the mornings now, and too much sweat

from late morning all the way to night.
What I wouldn’t give for October tomorrow.
I know it will come, not soon, not tomorrow,
not the following day;  but sitting here and burning up,
I can’t wait for October
when the earth will be naked,

when I may be alive.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations