Today's poem is Tamarack in Early November by Richard Foerster. It is read by Mihku Paul.
Tamarack in Early November
This morning the tamarack
tapered into sun-lit
flame,
so weighted with afterrain
each airy shudder
sent another
shower down the broadening
slopes. Swarovski-
glazed,
the lowest branches scraped
the ground, five beaded
green courtiers,
if not kowtowed to every
whim of weather,
then resilient
for knowing how to yield.
And my thoughts
clambered up
as if from the bottom
of a moss-slick
shaft
into a narrowing height
till they began to slip,
lacking . . . what?
That fire-licked tip, bright
with finality, so high
overhead,
is just the start, I told myself,
of another molten
needling
of the lawn. It descends
tier by tier. If I
could learn
and wait long enough
I might drown
in gold.