Tara Anderson

This poem showed up unannounced and will be introduced as such!

OCTOBER'S LESSON

October's sky is brash and blue
a lidless eye that tugs the lungs
with restive greed and
thrumming arcs of fire

The autumn earth responds in silence,
succumbs with wisdom's lush abandon
as she spreads her skirt at random
to sink upon a bed of crushed tea
that smells of loam and warm apples

My blood is drawn to this crimson scent
of abundance and lingering heat;
it teases out the sapling maps of youth
beneath my skin,
ghostly synapses long forgotten

Their phantom blush is warm but sad;
a rippled rush of memory
that shames me for the gifts I had
but would not surrender

Then, I chose to coil against the sky,
a tight, dry ball
that would not lend the smallest favor
without a view to winter's cost

If such tender chances could ripen twice
I would live autumn's lesson,
sink to my knees in streams of scarlet
and proffer my treasures
in lavish disdain of pain or depletion

Wiser, I would give to the last
while I still had such sweet gifts to cast
upon the winds of Eden

—Tara Anderson

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Tara sent this poem to her sister, Kristal, the old fashioned way . . . in a letter through the United States Post Office. It was intended for sharing, not for publication. Fortunately, however, she consented to share it with the rest of us.

CAUTIONARY TALE

We were legion
loud and raucous
filled with the sly fat of youth

Stairwells echoed our warrior calls
as we thickened the air with animal smells
of woolen skirts and tumbling legs
the gamy scent of freedom

Laughing, loping
like young Dianas at the hunt
Our eyes hurled razors through the halls . . .

When did we become so small?

—Tara Anderson

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