Three Poems

Far Away from Birth

And in the lemon tree garden
I am as the shadow is, dark and clinging
to the earth.
Beneath the shade, I saw the bright hills and their greenery
in the distance, heard the wind make loops and carry orioles
to their feeding grounds.



Chappaqua

How did it come to this

What did this life have to do with us
Our desires our mortality so insignificant
We were not prepared
We could not compete with death

Under the chilled branch we sway low
The dying leaves more like us now
Than in years we spent as mating winds

Again in the square lawn circled by trees
I am in the autumnal air with you
Watching deer run through the wood
Rubbing my hands together for warmth



My Father Continued

At the age of Odysseus setting out from Ithaca
I am still less varied than my father
Whose legacy is a tomato garden
A lone figure on the porch at night
The wind turning black against the sky

____
Kyle Brown lives in New York.