Vermont Meditation (tentative title)

Beneath a notched sycamore

the grass catches scars of autumn

falling as notched pages, torn from a book,

would fall – (aptly) swaying like pendulums

ticking away the days until December.

The pages traipse towards the water’s edge –  

towards the lake, the cobblestoned rut,

and crowd against the limestone breccia

like scrawled marginalia too cramped and blurred to read.

Empty spaces, lattice-like against the sky,

left by the pages peeled away,

are gaps among the leaves –

now, and now –

like missed beats in a symphony,

gaps on a staff –

a brazen emptiness,

now, and now –

the notes unfurl,

rests crescendo

into the penultimate silence

still falling, still to fall –

the unheard played beneath the heard.