Like nondescript
words scrolling
by on their pages,
the pattern and significance
of leaves outside my window
keep changing.
That I am perusing an adroit story,
I never even question.
And yet, deeper
and deeper into October,
no one moment
is like any other.
No particular morning
of drizzling gray, no crisp afternoon
or raw honey sundown,
no certain bird
pecking at the decorative
flint corn in the park
can distract me
from the extravagance
of what has come before—
or the importance
to the big picture
of the sentence coming next.
