Autumn Day
I enter the sylvan shadows,
full of a sense of mystery,
seeking to visit my present
and embark upon the
un-happened event.
Lichen on the rocks,
moist damp moss,
lap at my feet, as leaves
flutter to dank ground,
piling on flora compost,
crisp under foot, yet so
woodland moribund.
Suddenly my soul stirs.
It heaves into the past,
full of life-force.
The un-happened event had
not happened. I could emerge
from my box, my casket-to-be,
a case-box study of willful worms
angry at leaves of received wisdom,
hungry to destroy present and past.
That would leave my world a compost pile,
a warren of decaying status quo ante
under attack by a vast ant army
far more numerous than we
inhabitants of the Anthropocene.
If high tech can teleport me to
my un-happened event,
I can fend off the worms and
restore leaves to their mother trees.
I can nuke the ants into Eternity,
bring hope to all people. But this
is selfish rumination.
Time and Eternity co-habit this
forest. Everything must be as
it was. My time has not come.
The theology of worms and the
dogma of ants say it is so.
About the Poet
G. Louis Heath, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1969, teaches at Ashford University, Clinton, Iowa. He retires in May, 2016. He enjoys reading his poems at open mics. He often hikes along the Mississippi River, stopping to work on a poem he pulls from his back pocket, weather permitting. His books include Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly, Long Dark River Casino, and Vandals In The Bomb Factory. His most recent poems have been published in Poppy Road Review, Writing Raw, Inkstain Press, Verse-Virtual, and Squawk Back. He can be contacted at gheathorov@gmail.com.