Indian Summer

John Donlan

Year follows year, meadowhawk dragonflies
dry new wings, black-veined, wrinkled windows.
What we think we know is the same strait-jacket,
what we lack the same lack,

all the time in the world.
Leaves turn to brilliant going-away
presents: envious, you'd love to learn
festive, spectacular good-byes

to the visible remembered world,
more than resigned, considerately cheering
the living with incandescent memento
mori, mimicking exemplary

loving humans, as well as other creatures
oblivious of you as cloud formations:
fast, strong fliers, fall's last
butterflies: Mourning Cloak, Question Mark.


October 21, 2003

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John Donlan's works copyright © to the author.