October at the Monastery Farm

The leaves won’t stay this shade of poison green

for long. Even the weather-beaten Buddhas

seem to be shedding weight, fretting on

the pillars at the gate. Apple trees are littering the

cloistered lawn with clots of blotchy fruit.

 

Flies bombard the produce at the stand.

Lurching in a wild, gesticulated dance, we

whack at meaty thoraxes. Loath to let them eat

the meager yield, meanly hoarded from the

browning field. Soon each pumpkin’s evil smile

 

will split before our jaundiced eyes. Go and

fill old robes with rotting straw. Watch the crows spit

thwarted caws above the scritching corn. Yell out

curses to the rime before it creeps. Tell it to delay the

day when it fits each leering gulch with jagged teeth.

 

 

A Golden Shovel, after “Watermelons,” by Charles Simic

Filed under: Poetry