Fall Poems

Windigo By Louise Erdrich

You knew I was coming for you, little one,   

when the kettle jumped into the fire.   

Towels flapped on the hooks,   

and the dog crept off, groaning,   

to the deepest part of the woods.   

In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.   

Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot   

and called you to eat.   

But I spoke in the cold trees:   

New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still.   

The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.   

Copper burned in the raw wood.   

You saw me drag toward you.   

Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.   

You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.   

I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.   

Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered   

from the bushes we passed   

until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.   

Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full   

of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill   

all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth   

and I carried you home,   

a river shaking in the sun. 

​

Nothing Gold Can Stay 

By Robert Frost 

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.