At Your Grave /seven months after/

Here at the end of summer

the cosmos have fallen,

eight feet of proverbial beanstalk,

and above, no clouds, just sky.

sundials of magenta and off-white

takeoff in spirals, wind catchers,

rest against the warped bench

I never sealed, sheltering thin

stalagmites of wood dust

of those calling it home.

There is no carpenter like the bee.

I come to refill the hole where

the chipmunk burrowed again

Beneath your stone promenade,

listing the whole year in its subduction,

and I come late to listen to the cottonwood

leaves race like cars across the dust,

she earth taking notes in volumes—

Settling, unsettled, resettling.

Settled, unsettling, resettled.

___

SAM CALHOUN is a writer and photographer living in Elkmont, AL. The author of the chapbook “Follow This Creek” (Foothills Publishing), and a collaborative work “The Hemlock Poems” (Present Tense Media). His poems have appeared in Pregnant Moon Review, Westward Quarterly, Eratos, Boats Against the Current, and other journals. Follow him on Instagram @weatherman_sam, or his website, www.weathermansam.com