Julian Woodruff – Sparks of Calliope

Well on Toward December

A day almost too warm for comfort. Why
the look and sound of fall but not the feel?
The sun lies lazing in the southern sky—
veiled in tissue of cloud ordained to steal
each stretching shadow’s edge: a sight sealing a sigh.

A rustling leaf ballet inflects the light
Along lean birch limbs that will soon be bare,
yellow intensifying the bark’s white.
One branch’s last two leaves hang by a hair.
Two ancient lovers hark to every sound and sight.

Each autumn sees the story being told—
Their story—truer than the year before.
They feel themselves commingled with the gold
now drifting down, less able to ignore,
despite the warmth, the stillness of the impending cold.

The winter is their future; it will come
to them as surely as today it lies
in patience for the fall of the last plum,
claim of the snow; which underneath gray skies,
if not too late, may prove some watchful creature’s crumb.

The Plum Stump

The old plum tree was sawed off near the roots,
some branches in full leaf and others bare,
but not one promising a healthy yield—
a soon to be forgotten entity,
perhaps to be replaced eventually.

The stump looked up, a surface flat and raw,
a witness to the world of damage done,
though futile (being unattended to);
as good as dead, this remnant of the tree,
thought any who knew what it used to be.

The passing months would do the stump no favors.
The sun’s light bleached it to a ghostly pale,
and cracks appeared—the marks of heat and rain
working their weathering way with energy.
The stump slid quietly toward grotesquery.

And as decay inexorably progressed
across this surface, from the bark below
all ‘round the stump a miniature grove
of shoots sprang out, a veritable sea
of life to frustrate death’s hegemony.

Julian D. Woodruff retired from a life as an orchestral musician, teacher, and librarian (art, music). He recently moved from Rochester, NY, to Toronto, where he continues to write fiction and poetry, much of it for children. His poetry is available online at The Society of Classical Poets, Carmina, and Green Silk Journal, as well as Sparks of Calliope. WestWard Quarterly and The Lyric have also published his poetry.

The Mill

Along the road that leads north out of town
There stands an old mill, a decrepit thing.
At one time in the past, our city’s spring,
It churned out gravel. Now one looks around
The site where weather-wearied slats combine
To form bent walls and lurching towers bound
To make one think it begs to be torn down,
And wonder at its dying on the vine.

Without the mill, our town would not have risen,
But one day found its life elsewise sustained.
Some workers went to staff the nearby prison.
Others found jobs in skyscrapers glass-paned.
Gravel remains a product of much use.
But such our mill will nevermore produce.

Clouds at Dawn

The sky is an aquarium today.
The denizens of this inverted deep,
Some big as whales, others quite small,
loom, heavy late-night tokens all.

Gliding lethargically ahead,
They await the first dim rays of dawn.
Mimicking fish admirers like to keep,
Each separate stays. They look asleep.

These early morning clouds, a school
So calm, prophesy scant rainfall,
Although their cast is charcoal gray
That swim this strangely situated bay.

There’s little chance they’ll sprinkle any lawn,
Even—much less refill the shallowest pool
Beside a drying flower bed
The heated air has left for dead.

They merely haunt the sky, a phantom jewel
To be within an hour gone.

Julian D. Woodruff divides his time between western New York State and Toronto, writing short fiction and poetry, much of it for children. His work is most recently represented in WestWard Quarterly and on the websites of Aphelion Webzine and The Society of Classical Poets.

Tag: Julian Woodruff

Two Poems by Julian Woodruff