in thirty minutes, in fall

All in thirty minutes, dodging rust and glass from

Last century’s middens,

The low-angled sun on the river backlights

The floating insect particles,

Still speckling the fall-

And the twig in my pocket that matches

The bobcat tracks, pad to toe,

One carefully inside the other,

Piercing my hip-

And the aging gray birch who

Seems a magnet,

Drawing a flock of goldfinches

Suddenly, like static,

    whose cheeky caps have dropped

so as to  disappear, becoming

The old birch’s golden leaves-

So I, coming in,

Gathering about me four heavy blankets who have

Seen who knows what all day,

 am so quickly laden.