The gnarled hands knead the air
to nothingness. The eyes,
locked in a downward stare—
not so much in despair
as in bewilderment—
might tell of his descent,
if you could see his eyes.
His clothes are all a mess.
His words are tumbling out
in remnant bits of doubt.
You think he might have meant
to say a little less,
to mean a little more.
But all that was before
his shoulders, round as stones
shook loose, and heaved and fell.
With so much more to tell
—with little left to say—
the eyes now break away
and, darting through the space
like fall leaves in the wind
they hover, fall again,
then rise, and then alight,
exhausted, on the face
to rest between their bones.
With no more to express,
with nothing but the slightest
clearing for a view
they turn inside, break through—
then crumble into less.
November clarifies.
The colors clump. The freeze
hangs drapes of white shadow
across the bones of trees.
Things lessen, stark as truth,
when earth, or man, succumbs,
and all of beauty goes.
And then, the beauty comes.
The Alcoholic in November
