September’s last exhausted stride;
What is pride in sun’s strong-arm rays
when Fall has called for her cool cover?
A gradient Stellar wings low,
steals ground. His silhouette
perfectly disturbing, too blue
and the woodland pallette, green and brown, sits with its tension in coils.
He finds, afoot, an active patch of Sol’s soul, and seems there,
the bluest brilliance that ever slipped down and hinted at black.
How close.
But blue.
How dark.
Not black.
He calls for some arbitrary lunch hour,
his beak a school bell out of whack,
and he sets off climbing trees
up quick with quickening hops.
If I approach
he will recede, a fleeing point of blue.
But it is not fear that throws him;
the Jay is fain to lead,
bold-beaked.
And if I follow,
all of the forest,
he might coax me through.
Dylan Pliskin