A few others by Francis
WITH THE YEAR'S COOLING
With the year's cooling come the colors of fire.
The later-blooming are the warmer flowers
That blaze and smolder in the thinning hours.
Now in the falling of the unfailing year
The quiet-clicking leaves unlatch a door
To those long landscapes we have waited for.
Bitter and fragrant hangs the smoke-tinged air
From some abandoned bonfire near or far,
While sterner night burns an intenser star.
And though I'm trying to stay away from Anthology pieces, I heard someone read this poem last night at a memorial reading for Walter Pavlich (an excellent poet from Davis, who died suddenly last July in his mid-forties), and was surprised by how well this later poem of Francis' works as an oral/performance piece...how, while being made up entirely of nouns, it creates a narrative:
SILENT POEM
backroad leafmould stonewall chipmunk
underbrush grapevine woodchuck shadblow
woodsmoke cowbarn honeysuckle woodpile
sawhorse bucksaw outhouse wellsweep
backdoor flagstone bulkhead buttermilk
candlestick ragrug firedog brownbread
hilltop outcrop cowbell buttercup
whetstone thunderstorm pitchfork steeplebush
gristmill millstone cornmeal waterwheel
watercress buckwheat firefly jewelweed
gravestone groundpine windbreak bedrock
weathercock snowfall starlight cockcrow
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