Hallowtide
For Don
Fall’s first flame faded fast.
The only colors now are tired evergreens,
straw-snapped cornstalks in empty fields.
After the hallow of All Soul’s, nights grow long
and frost wakes us, warns
that winter is coming for us.
And we are never ready
for the unexpected summons when
the unsayable breaks our voices.
We once broke bread together,
and now his departure breaks us.
Each lost leaf a grief
and a relief
for the tree’s bare bones
to be reclothed
white with snow.
Alicia A. McCartney lives with her husband and daughter in southwestern Ohio, where she writes and works as a professor of English literature. Her poetry is forthcoming in Ekstasis.
Amethyst Review 