Because we spent the last few days at the Midway house among the aspens and under a gorgeous October sky

                           Aspen Grove

In thin blue air
          October threads slowly
                    through the gallery of white trunks.
Deepest cobalt above and all around
          the tissued rustlings of yellow and gold
As the trees whisper among themselves--
The stories of ancient lovers
Who dared on other days--
          Spring days
                    electric and chartreuse with hope--
To make their raw and restless love
With this discrete audience,
          this witness of unblinking
                    knotty eyes.

And sensing
          even in their swirl and surge 
                    and crush,
the transience
          of season and leaf
                    and even more of ardor,
They carved their passion into the papery bark
          with anything sharp and handy--
                    a pen knife
                              a nail file
                                        a bottle cap
To pin it whole somehow
          to an eternal, woody thing.
A wound that by this October afternoon
Has blackened and scabbed
          into a scar still oozing sap.
                    into a tattoo
                              outlasting love and even lovers.