Fall Colors and Poetry

I can honestly say that the one thing I miss most from the great Hoosier state, is its trees during Autumn.

Bloomington has all these incredibly old trees, and the campus of Indiana University is literally covered with leaves.

Here in Florida, the weather has been in the 50s and it's been wonderful! It makes me miss those crisp fall days on the IU campus.

Walking through the tree-lined walkways to class...

Listening to the red clocks sing on the hour...

Passing through the Sample Gates towards Kirkwood...

It's beautiful to be surrounded by fall, to be completely engulfed in it. It is usually this time of year that inspires me to write so much poetry, a trend that I am failing horribly at since being here in Florida.

So, here is one of my favorite poems I've written during fall, Enjoy!

Thanks for looking!

Atlas 

1.

He entered my life like pollen flowing from a flower;
A peculiar man--a boy really--
still stretching his new, thick skin over
muscles brimming beyond white bones.

His hair was long, shoulder length
undefined in its texture like wind patterns—
harsh and twisted in some strands, smooth and gentle in others.
Before I could mutter I could never date a man
with hair longer than mine the judgment changed
the wind forced tendrils of the stuff onto my fingertips;
my ears strained to hear his “’cuse me”.

His eyes, dark as moist soil, were haunting in their mystery
of where pupil begins and iris ends. And through them
I believed you could see the very soul of the Earth,
its living, its dying, its breathing, and its breaking.

He folded a yellow bandana with careful precision, from triangle to lopsided rectangle,
which he tied around his head and that lovely hair with such an ease
that it pained me to investigate what those gentle hands would explore on my own body.

His clay skin a new world entirely, I revered
tracing the great rivers of the world up his spine with the tips of my fingers,
climbing mountains across his broad shoulders with my lips.

I dreamt of being engulfed in his arms,
his heartbeat throbbing against my back—an earthquake of sorts--
his breath dry as the Earth’s deserts,
whispering the secrets of the world in every language,
raising hills of sandy warmth on my bare shoulders.

2.

We moved together asymmetrically,
colliding at the perpendicular crossings of our interwoven lives
like highways crashing through small towns.
He caught me fast by the waist, the hum of
La Vie En Rose in my ear, a smile pressed to my cheek,
locked into a sway to a song he knew no words to,
waves breaking onto the sands of some distant shore.

His hand shifted to below my thigh,
lifting my body to the safety of his chest, my legs
wrapped firm around his waist, locked at the ankles.
Arms and hands and fingers wrapped in hair.

I met his forehead with my own,
a collision of stars in our own small galaxy.
And it was there among our own supernovas,
unwavering under my weight in his arms,
he told me a story of a man who held up the
world to keep it from falling.