The Squirrels Have Built Their Home Among the Falling

sonnet

Photos by Jonathan Potter

The squirrels have built their home among the falling
leaves of the darkening branches of the fall
just as I have built my home in the calling
of these words laid out in lines that call
my name as if recited from a tombstone
obscured with the leaves of many an autumn
or spoken into the speaker of an old phone
or into a well that seems to have no bottom
and yet allows the sound of an echoing splash
when you drop a pebble in or a coin
whenever you make a wish to lose some cash
or seek a friendly group to let you join,
and the last leaf of the highest thinnest limb
clings to the sunrise sky like a silent hymn.

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