“At every gust the dead leaves fall”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Rainy Day”

Two close centuries of stone and cloth and paperchalked your cheeks and carved your
hands to broken.You are not a monument any more, now—more like a forestmoving
shadows under simple trees, dark rivuletsmottling snow fading in this warm gray
winter,melting the centuries you didn’t know, Henry Longfellow—wait—I can hear
you—a low and earnest voice, wind in fir trees, burningthrough this room, where you
wrote your saddest poem, through this house, where the farm and family built you. Your
sister Ann’s portraitstumbles, eyes black as night behind a candle.The marble urn in
your red brick yard has fallen, knocked down in the emptiness of the fountain. Cries of
the seagullsreach through walls to find you again, pour downthe carrying knowledge
that grew your branching gardens—and tell me which old words, which new wings, will
carry you from this courtyard.

First published in Cerise Press