The World Around Us Winter 2013 | Page 7

I Fall Into Piles of Awe

Malachi Carter

September

The predecessor of November

An August rush to December

An omen:

oh men must toil.

As the weather makes you wither my father makes me work whether in want or whimper

Harvest,

Yard work,

Hard work.

I am just a child!

You lead me to fall,

Leave me in all

of these loads

of filthiness.

Mediocre to media’s foolish tricks.

Others my age might consider it mild

as they mend their piles

and jump.

So alive,

they must have different eyes;

not mine.

Brown as the layers of my skin, labors of my hands

Dirt, mud;

A flood from the trunk of a black Ford truck.

A pool of your debris only to be

a dump.

Piles in which I’d never wish to be dunked,

even still to this day.

But now, like you, my eyes change.

What was once brown now to rearrange

like you in hues of yellow, burgundy, and orange

Once shut, now open.

Shattered glass!

It hit me like a hammer,

the beauty of death.

Before I was

Coughing as the rake dug your coffin;

Now, not so often

or at all

But now in Autumn

I fall into piles of awe.