Sounds of lightly falling—
ping of green acorns on dirt,
late peaches hardballing
the shed roof.

Not a heavy package of grief,
dropped like mail on the porch,
but a crow’s omen of leavings,
evenings when the sky

shines its beet-red edge below
the moon’s harp and horn.
Where summer plays out, backflows,
has itself a spell, unknots

the strings between halves, and I hear
singing along the split paths.

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Sharon Ackerman resides in Virginia. Her poems have appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Atlanta Review, Appalachian Places, Kestrel, Salvation South, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and others. Her third poetry collection is Sweeping the Porch (Pine Row).

 
Image: Dan Freeman. Unsplash, 2017.