Two Poems

James Owens

A Note at the Beginning of Autumn

The rain has paused here,
but I like the raw wind that tears
at the branches, undressing them,
redressing, calling me

to stand at the door and watch
yellow leaves rush away
as clouds bulk taller
into the sombering afternoon.

The tough old men I knew when I was young
are gone, every one of them
with their tobacco juice and rattlesnake
canes and vast coats worn soft,

 but I've heard of a high bald on Pine Mountain
where they gather in wind like this
and talk about the lights down here.
Someday I'll go, and I'll know them.

Envoy:
There is a spider web in one upper corner
of the door frame.
Three wrapped flies
glued to the wood like seeds.

The Last Fling of Winter

The sleepy mammal,
rimed with a silver frost,

is warm now to the touch,
has come alive in afternoon

sunshine to dart about
the swell of the fields.

Earth hides secrets
in leafless thickets:

already windflowers, adder's
tongue, bloodroot,

the gabble of the grackles.
The bulb and the grub

and the seed will tell
the first dragonflies

– metallic, uncurling –
to shimmer.

(Note: A found poem constructed with phrases from “April 6,” in Donald Culross Peattie's An Almanac for Moderns)

James Owens's most recent book is Mortalia (FutureCycle Press, 2015). His poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or forthcoming publications in Appalachian Heritage, The Adirondack Review, The Honest Ulsterman, and Dappled Things. Originally from Virginia, he earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in a small town in northern Ontario.