We swing like silk or snow
swept over mesa flats.

Though in the pith of fall,
leaves twitch red
through the eddy, at eventide.

We sit long-sleeved in a river house
mull over music,
that warms
ice creatures.

Today I raked a melody
with syllables culled from your lips.
But I miss you when you gather

   chrysanthemums each morning;
and on return,
float their painted tongues
in glass bowls.

Chrysanthemums round patio light
remind me of our first autumn,
when you held my glove
in the Venus noon.

Darling. This garden is art, verged on the obsessive
but I heed the artistry in your labors,
I hold them dear, their desires unafraid to conjure wings
that they may conjure flight.

Upon twisting your wrist, caught
in the spindrift of creation,
you could no longer heave soil to stack.

I tended fresh earth in delicious seclusion,
and laced your pond with chrysanthemum gold.

So come! Meet me under ribboned white
where autumn hovers, and the sun sidles near-
as the murmurs of our harmonies hold.

Photograph Courtesy: Sharbeen Sarash © All Rights Reserved