Morning Mist
by Richard Spilman
Every morning in autumn,
the dead rise from the pond,
arms lifted to a pinkish sky,
creep into fields
tilled and reaped,
bewilder the gravel roads
as if the pale half-light
of the dying year
portends
their season of glory.
But as the sun climbs,
they fade back
into the dark pool
fringed by reeds,
and its charade of stillness
and reflection.
Richard Spilman is the author of In the Night Speaking and of two chapbooks, Suspension and Dig.