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The Fruits of the Harvest

The crisp, tumbling leaves are meant to be signs
Brown-silk specters once met in the woods
That now lie buried
In the airless basement of a fallen house

Exquisite romance and illicit affairs
Swell plum-like in Autumn
Fugitive shadows burn in our hearts
The hissing and screaming inside our blood
Breaks our reverie
Foils our dreams
Grows older
And more cautious with strangers

Like foundlings in an outlaw desert
Like anxious angels who flirt with the sun
Guilty just for feeling
The weary bounty of the world
We take our place among the sobering tribes
Where the path ahead seems to go nowhere
And the thunder in the east beckons
With an unsettling nod

Others will wonder
At the strange, bright glimpses of justice
In the distance
And the ragged hornpipe music of death
Trying to win us to the other side

A lonely door falls
As if pushed by rebellious spirits
And we walk like warrior-lovers
Suspected of eloquent and sensuous dancing
Where terror struggles to curtain the world
We keep faith with the laughter
Of our sane, small lives
That float now in an endless sea
Washed with gold and the ashes of skylarks

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