Suddenly October

His wife had died from cancer.
There weren't enough details,
only this reason to wear a dark shirt.

In February, you would've found him,
hunchbacked, finishing nothing,
warming his hands over a meager fire.

Then in March,
pruning the vineyards. By September,
making wine.

In my dream, I see him as my autumnal
father with a gray fedora, doing his chores,
and then a big wind comes and steals away his hat.

The world is vast,
more boundless than all that birds inhabit.
It is a graspable earth where larks imply the sky

entire cities of breaths and vistas.
Fugitive as watercolor,
the short walk to my maple trees dials light.

What is October but the smell of bonfire smoke,
when fathers leave and carry with them
their scent of mild decay.