View from the Deck September 2023
by David Matthews

It came when autumn came,
back to books, back to art,
release from summer languor,
a rhythm that goes back
to a timid, bookish boy
and a little schoolhouse
in the Carolina countryside.

Half a century and more
and the span of a continent away,
poem pages flutter
where the book lies open,
leaves quiver and fairly dance
in sunset colored breeze,
scent of rain, mist,
sweet, gentle melancholy.

I thought I heard a cello
in the distance
where a painter stood
brush in hand
poised at the canvas
as if he were some Renoir, Degas,
come to paint the riot
of cloud and sunset
that came when autumn came.



 

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