Another September Song

Now on this stage the planes alight, a sweeping and a shape,
the turning screws of another time tightening.
Hectoring drops of rain or sweat crash and splatter
and disappear, a hot griddle these thoughts, this time, alive.

We sweet, we offer this ripeness soon desiccant,
parenthetical fringes on autumn's billowy blade,
lowering light on the breakwaters, fading
into sharp relief, cold comfort, and hard candy.
It's this answer that reminds you to ask...

Smiling and circumspect,
watching the buses go by -
tectonic weights of why? and OK, and so? and so not.
If these wounds are treated, if they are at all,
they are treated as a dog at the heels,
down there at the heels.

Sometimes these layers fall away
and the hands of the clock fall off, reaching up
for you to catch them;
or they will catch you.
Anyway, someone will be caught.

The last cone flowers dust the last bees' knees
and here we stand, always within
and beckoned, to the fuzzy orange distance,
and there we go, always without.
That head of steam,
these feet of thunder,
this sweetlight portrait.