October canvas

An almost liquid maize of air
takes color at dusk from stubble fields;
aspens vibrate back brilliance.
Opened sky
corals the fingerling clouds and first snow
on peaks; hazed blue rinses down
from the mountaintops.
Beneath the V-branching come visible
in locust and birch ...
gold
drips and pools. Wing-scythes
of migrating birds rise in one body,
dense in a calligraphy of passage.