Quill & Parchment: Still-Warm Fingers

Still-Warm Fingers
by Michael Schein

Here it is the dank heart of Autumn
ground fecund with decaying leaves in rain,
sky corpse grey, the pumpkins grinning
their toothy mockery of squishy humanity,
so you would expect a poem on death,
the tragedy of mortality, the brief flash,
that sort of thing;

Surprise! this gloomy morning in the park
is illuminated by lovers, entwined
like blooming spring pea vines,
doing what lovers do on a bench
in the park, in any season: laughing
without reason, stroking, kissing,
laughing some more, staring their
insatiable stares, answering the lacuna
in one another's prayers;

There they are, oblivious to the omnipresent
metaphors of futility,
heedless of sodden clouds, the Satanic
symbols of All Hallow's Eve,
ecstatic among browning sunflowers
foreshadowing bitter separation,
they renew with perfect innocence
the ancient forever fresh rush of
two seeds blown on the wind
to the rim of the Volcano,
taking root.

And here we are too, and suddenly
the dark sky rich with rain
flashes lightning,
rekindling the spark
carried from the gone world
to the next. What is this deluge
if not a reminder of wonder,
a sign to thrust our still-warm fingers
into the loam of chilling earth
in anticipation of re-birth.

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