You said to write 

when the seasons change,

to let the forward motion 

unsettle my words. 

 

Let the phrases

which sunbathed 

across the tree outside 

my bedroom window 

crinkle between their thinning leaves, 

be swallowed by fragility. 

 

Study the birds 

that nested between its branches,

write how they rush 

to distant summers,

their flight casting coolness

my bedroom floor

and the poems that lay there. 

 

You said to write 

when summer rubs shoulders

with shorter days,

to let my words chafe 

between their mingling. 

 

Maybe the air,

brittle as it is,

can carry my verses to you,

 

like wings

can haul bodies

to trees, somewhere,

with more promise of flourishing

in the days, months to come.