A Letter in October By Ted Kooser

                     Autumn at a camp in the swamp. (Photo from Google Images.)

                                              My Catfish and a new friend. ;-)

A Letter in October - By Ted Kooser

Dawn comes later and later now,
and I, who only a month ago
could sit with coffee every morning
watching the light walk down the hill
to the edge of the pond and place
a doe there, shyly drinking,

then see the light step out upon
the water, sowing reflections
to either side - a garden
of trees that grew as if by magic -
now see no more than my face,
mirrored by darkness, pale and odd,

startled by time. While I slept,
night in its thick winter jacket
bridled the doe with a twist
of wet leaves and led her away,
then brought its black horse with harness
that creaked like a cricket, and turned

the water garden under. I woke,
and at the waiting window found
the curtains open to my open face;
beyond me, darkness. And I,
who only wished to keep looking out,
must now keep looking in.

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'A Letter in October' from Weather Central (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), © Ted Kooser 1994

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