Wake Up, Wake Up

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WAKE UP, WAKE UP


If a tree that ridiculously yellow 

were to net the last light of October

and reel it into the evening sky,


leaving me gasping for breath

as I flounder from the dream, 

it would not be a question of if


but what it might mean. And if

beneath that tree were a dead

red-headed woodpecker beside 


a yellow chickadee, any late-morning

doubts that something was being said 

would also be laid to rest. 


And if this were to occur 

on the southwest corner of my house

during what passes as our waking,


the leaves quaking gently as a dog’s paw 

giving chase to the rabbit 

from his warm corner of the couch,   


I have to protest that it’s not really

all that out there to suggest 

that the message might yet be coming 


from the other side of these tangled sheets,  

in dogged pursuit of our coming-to 

and shaking more than our shoulders. 


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