NOVEMBER LEAVES

November leaves –
beautiful before their fall,
then down on the ground
like the dead
in so many silent cemeteries.
They had their time –
buds, blossoms, steady solid
green and then
their final splash of color –
death –
the November leaves
finally coming to their rest
in bushes, in corners,
some raked into piles,
then cremated, sending
sweet incense into the steel blue sky,
but most stuck somewhere
for the winter, as November
turns into December – and snow,
then the long cold time till spring,
resurrection.
It’s good to stop to see the leaves.
It’s good to have November
a time to remember those
who have fallen before us.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2007

THE SUN

The little girl kept reaching out
trying to grab the ball of sun,
but she couldn’t reach it and
nobody would bounce it to her.

In fact, it had disappeared
when she went to the window
after supper to look at it once again.

She began to cry,
fisting her hands into her eyes
and when she looked again,
it still wasn’t there
and all her life
she thought she had done it.

© Andy Costello, Poems, 2007

PROPER BURIAL

She was out picking berries –
her leather satchel had
the hardened remains.
The anthropologists figured
it was a land slide and she
was buried down deep
under dirt and rock
what figures like 1400 years ago -
way up there
in the cold north country.
What did her family go through
when she didn’t return – when
she totally disappeared?
Now, she can be seen
even if it’s behind glass
in a proper tomb in a museum.
Visitors stand there
for a few moments reading
the laminated words
about her discovery
in a mining excavation.
No tears. No pain. No funeral.
At least now we know what
happened to one of our family
that day a long time ago.
Who else is out there?
Who else is missing?
How long does it take
to discover, to dig up,
to uncover another’s story,
another's disappearance
from our life?

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2007

OLD PORCH CHAIR

The paint is peeling
off the old porch chair.
I guess choosing to sit
out here all the time
it never gets a chance
to see all those new
long lasting paints
they advertise on T.V.

© Andy Costello, Poems 2007

HANDICAPPED

He was handicapped;
she was half a person;
all they knew how to do
was complain. Let us pray....

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2007

SEASONS

Autumn leaves,
some tan, some brown,
some rather unnoticed,
huddled and cornered
trying to keep warm
outside the red brick school,
parents and grandparents,
looking at their watches,
waiting for the afternoon
school bell to sound and
send out to them
hundreds of kids,
running out into the cold,
kids unaware of age and autumn,
kids in their long spring,
kids, a long time till
they are like their parents
and grandparents, autumn leaves,
some tan, some brown,
some rather unnoticed,
after a long hot summer of life,
now huddled and cornered,
trying to keep warm
outside red brick schools.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2007

JOB 38 – 39:

A LESSER TRANSLATION

Who teaches the solitary bird
how to fly across an early morning sky?

Who erases the footprints
off the sandy beach during the night?

Who decides on red
for some following mornings?

Who paints the sky,

when it's New Mexico blue?

Who designed babies hands, a woman’s
bend and a 90 year old grandfather’s smile?

Who? Oh You, it’s You.
You again and again. Thank You.

© Andy Costello Reflections, 2007