One for Safe Keeping

Jeffrey Donaldson
From:   Waterglass. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999.

Under the plumb gold
of October sun,
the maple in the field
will hold its own

until the last leaf
has come off,
and fallen god knows where
into the brown duff.

That leaf is here now,
tucked somewhere unseen
inside the chiming
millionfold green

that shimmers in the air.
If I knew where it was
I could watch the last one
chime and shimmer with the rest.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Jeffery Donaldson's works copyright © to the author.