Like an Autumn Day
By Kristen Hamilton O’Neill
There’s barely a wind
but when it blows
doubt interrupts my amble.
Why aren’t the windows square,
and the roof flat,
and the stone walls bare?
I wonder.
As the aspens quake,
my yearning grows
to climb like the sycamore
on the damp grass
and merely peek inside.
My hands overcome the sleek moss,
as fissured footholds lift me closer.
The tawny blazed leaves
crunch under my stark white shoes
like half-popped corn
sprawled in an empty metal bowl.
Thick, cold panes reveal
cobwebs
so thick and plentiful
they could be trampolines for acrobatic spiders
spinning webs of time.
Curiosity begets revelation
and every door opens
if you push hard enough.
There she lies on the altar table,
as dead as they say,
with ashen skin wrapped in a wimple
so snug around her neck and chin
she looks cinched alive.
I fall to pray, an unfamiliar pose
where bruised up knees meet dust covered oak.
“Welcome, my boy. I’ve been wanting for you.”
Her raspy voice rattles my soul anew
like a gust of fear.
Wanting.
“But I thought you were…”
“Practicing death? Indeed I am.”
“And?”
“It feels like an endless walk on an Autumn day.”
