To celebrate the publication of my university’s literary magazine, I’m going to post an older poem of mine that was published in this semester’s edition of the magazine.  Because I am the boss-lady, I don’t actually decide what goes in the magazine.  Instead, committees of students anonymously judge the poetry, prose and art.  They send me their selections and I reveal the authors.

The Requiem

The stairwells are littered
with the carcasses of cicadas.
Their brethren hum
a rolling roar, ululation,
in litany for the dead.

For in autumn death is splendid
as the corpses of summer insects
are shrouded in a Technicolor tapestry
and the proud skeletons
of oaks and Japanese maples,
lightened of their burdens,
graze the sky with spindly fingers.
They clip the wings of a shifting
menagerie; spring songbirds
traded for geese and gander.
Owls and bats,
patrons of the evening,
skulk in their dark haunts
of corners and crevices
while the beasts retreat
to their dens.

The air smells sweet and sharp -
of rotting
earth,
the swelling of the soil,
and the frosting
of the grass.