Sketch in October

The tugboat is freckled with rust. What’s it doing here so far inland?

It’s a heavy extinguished lamp in the cold.

But the trees have wild colors: signals to the other shore.

As if someone wanted to be fetched.

On my way home I see mushrooms sprouting through the grass.

They are the fingers, stretching for help, of someone

who has long been sobbing alone down in the darkness.

We are the earth’s.