Maybe this October sun
will torch the asters, the swamp maples.
Maybe rain long overdue
will extinguish them.
The tourist economy all depends.
A foliage-walk beside Squam Lake:
my jaunty wave and friendly smile
to a child wandering the beach.
She retreats with stricken look, reports
my forwardness to an unseen mom:
maybe I’m safe, maybe not.
Maybe Mother and Father watched
from their West Hartford window,
waiting to see if I would be born
before every leaf had changed—
and are waiting yet, in blessed ground;
only now for the stained-glass leaves
that fall on their plots to announce
the resurrection of the dead,
and mitigate earth burial.
Maybe all
Pastor promised this morning is true.
Even Pastor doesn’t know for sure.
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