Persephone in Autumn

In the season of rotting fruit, when
crickets hiss their last requests
and petals flutter off

the late bloomers, beauty's
final flare-up before the dead months,
I, who despise airports,

endings, whose sentences simply
trail off, feel for a moment regret's
familiar throb, and harbor for a moment

the illusion I can choose among
several appealing options, only one of which
is obedience. No one had to teach me

beauty exists to embody the inevitable.
If I stand in an empty meadow, a golden
expanse that doesn't wave or tremble,

it reveals the terrain in me
that's withered, unredeemable.
If I elect a life of silence

and close my mouth around my tongue
to let it rest, doesn't that demonstrate
I never learned to make a sound?

As if my love of sweetness
proves I know nothing
of bereavement, as if

I've gathered up
all the gold on earth to buy
what only confirms my poverty.

Copyright © 2005 Ann Keniston All rights reserved
from The Caution of Human Gestures
David Robert Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission