Donna Hilbert, Autumn and Poets

I love the poems of Stanley Kunitz, Pulitzer Prize winner in mid-life, two-time Poet Laureate of the United States, the second time when he was ninety-five years old.  He lived past the age of 100 and was vital until the end.  His poems are easily found online and in actual books, so I won’t post one here. He was also a fabulous interview subject with many wise things to say about the making of poetry. He said that fall was his favorite season for writing and I have to admit that it is mine as well.  He was famous for his love of gardening and for the natural world and its creatures.  He advised poets to keep a garden.  One of my favorite Kunitz sayings is “end on an image and don’t explain.” Here is a poem for fall, for the garden, and which ends on an image in the way that Kunitz prescribes. The poet is Erle Kelly.

Equinox In Autumn

It’s time for me to pull the roots

of the short-spent lives

of Early Girls, Romas,

Sweet 100’s along 

with zucchinis, crook-necks,

peppers, eggplants, 

Chinese long beans.

I rejuvenate the plot, 

spread moist manure,

let it seep and steep

into the depleted soil

making way for infant 

hardy reds and greens

of broccoli, carrots, beets,

cabbage, swiss chard, kale.

The garden I planted at the year’s

first equinox flourished

when the sun reached June.

Now its low angle casts long shadows

from the trees that surround the garden.

I take out the withered plants

disrupting the homes of insects

and small critters, providing meals

for the red-tail hawks that whine

and sway in the treetops.