K. Hartless

The Flush of Fall

The trees have ruddy cheeks
after a season of heavy drinking,
but as rays and rains retreat,
a skeletal hand
beckons me to lie in shadow
below my favorite tulip tree,
amidst the signature pattern
of DNA forestry.

If I escape into unknown dark,
a place sunlight can never hold,
will knowledge be bestowed
from the underside
of limb and branch?
I duck and take a chance, besides
enlightenment never trickles;
it is always avalanche.

The bark, a sort of braille,
a hidden language,
and by touch we speak,
myself and ancient tulip tree,
share spells through silent system,
wrinkled body ‘gainst wrinkled hand.
Is that not real wisdom?

© 2022 | K.Hartless

This poem was written the fall outdoors, while I was enjoying a meditative book of poetry entitled, “Nature Speaks” written by the talented Jeff Flesch.

The poems nested inside this collection are inspirational, grounded, and just plain gorgeous.

A huge thank you to Jeff for featuring my poem last week on his website JeffFlesch.com. I was honored to have my poem posted on his site.

Published by K. Hartless

K. Hartless is a persistent poet, free-spirited fiction writer, and word trapeze artist. She’s been recently published in Chamber Magazine, 365tomorrows, Luna Station Quarterly, The Last Girls Club, Edge of Humanity Magazine, and Spillwords. Her blog, Yard Sale of Thoughts, blends fiction, poetry, music, and art to create new experiences for readers.

14 comments

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s