.
across the river
Mt. Massamett’s trees give it up,
cool and windy rains undo
the grasps of leaves to limb,
sap slows, chlorophyll’s far gone as pigment
in an old man’s hair, yellows and reds
to brown, leaves dry and spent, underfoot
in layers deep as blown dreams
but on Rt. 2 below
a ten-wheel rig’s upshift
blends with swift Harley gargles:
long deep-throated tone
that dopplers up from there to here
then down from here to there
until its song, like smoke, disappears
round Catamount’s hump
whose leafless foot slides out just so
to nudge the highway south enough
to let a rider, leather-bound,
swoop that curve
constrained only by rules
of friction and inertia,
to be transfigured
in a rush of wind
adrenaline
and joy
Jim Culleny
November 2007
Blink 