Poetry Revisited

The 18th morning of October, in the year 2010 A.D.

Nearly a month ago, I began a poetry class which I had enrolled in the previous spring. Eagerly, I jumped right into the readings, and was instantly overcome with nostalgia. We convene in a circle to discuss “The Red Wheel Barrow,” “Metaphors,” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” I couldn’t help but reminisce about days long past. And thus, I set out on a journey to visit the roots of my poetic education; the AP Literature blog.

It is empty. Once filled with the lively discussions of intelligent youths, the blog is abandoned. Massive cobwebs adorn each nook and cranny, and with every step I take, a plume of dust erupts around me. As my foot bumps a loose stone, echoes reverberate throughout the chamber, and for a moment I can close my eyes and image the multitudes of students, who once spent late nights and early mornings frantically typing up their latest posts.

All are gone now, moved on to new places, to experience new things. Alone, I brush the dust from the pages of past works. I reread “Valediction Forbidding Mourning” and “Spinster,” refreshing my memories. Oh, how the years seem to slip away! And, before I slip away, back to college, permitting the dust to erase my footprints, I would leave a poem. Something new, in a blog long abandoned.

Autumn-slain
A dense fog of billowing cold
Sweeps across a bed of gold.
Mounds of bodies with deaths unsaid;
The leaves which all the trees have shed.
Their ghosts still whisper in the wind;
Brittle voices confess to sins
From their youths when they were green;
That’s when I woke and saw the scene.

Chill air gusts through the window,
Crisp as golden-red apples
(their skin taut and swollen with sweet autumn nectar).
It’s tinged with the smell
of late blooming roses,
And filled with the scent of dead leaves.