I was utterly clueless about a good poem for today. Something about greed, I figured, would be about right for Black Friday. A nice, scathing hit at our annual orgiastic devotion to Mammon. No? Then perhaps something about Autumn instead. Nothing immediately came to mind, and jumping around the internet mostly reminded me of how much terrifically bad poetry is out there.
Then I found this gem by Elizabeth Klise von Zerneck, of whom I know very little, except that she plays in Peoria and has won some poetry awards. I'll definitely keep my eye out for her work now. This is an excellent that piece combines both hard currency and the slow drift of the season perfectly. Here's a contrast to the march of the trampling crowds.
We drove past late fall fields as flat and cold
as sheets of tin and, in the distance, trees
were tossed like coins against the sky. Stunned gold
and bronze, oaks, maples stood in twos and threes:
some copper bright, a few dull brown and, now
and then, the shock of one so steeled with frost
it glittered like a dime. The autumn boughs
and blackened branches wore a somber gloss
that whispered tails to me, not heads. I read
memorial columns in their trunks; their leaves
spelled UNUM, cent; and yours, the only head . . .
in penny profile, Lincoln-like (one sleeve,
one eye) but even it was turning tails
as russet leaves lay spent across the trails.
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