September Twenty-Eighth

Today is the first faultless morning of fall,
cool and keen enough to carry a sweater,
and I, though nearsighted, came naturally to know,
without warning, how much I’d wished for this,
how wantonly I’d been waiting.
While I grasped and grappled the ground
brisk breezes braced my back
and held my hair, hovering,
and senses in my legs sent surges
to suck at my soul.
It startled and stunned my stomach
and hollowed holes in my heart
with shrill shots of sugar,
opening my exhausted eyes
to the energy of the earth.
The width of my windowed gaze widened,
my breaths became more broad
and firmer, fairer, more fulfilling—
how long it’s been since my lungs last
drank light, unleaded air!
Clean, unclouded wind cleared out
the over-used and yellowed air of yesterday
that prodded and pressed us, not protesting:
dead, destructive dew
that daily desecrated summer.
Raw and radiantly I remember,
fast, with a force that fills
nerves, neurons, nematodes,
that I can do any action—
how could I forget this axiom?
How could I, in cold caution,
for a whole hot and heady summer
have lain listless and lifeless
under the overlaid artifice
and the asymmetrical illusion of weakness?