November 2001

You notice the smells first, more spring, or
even summer, than late fall, the stale-clean
scent of wet sunlit streets after last night’s 
heavy rain, the musk of soaked dead leaves,
humid decay in a season usually dry, a 
shining solstice sigh through open windows,
suspended on a candent morning breeze. 

U.S. military planners think insurrections
encouraged by U.S intelligence operatives
will pressure the Taliban into . . . for the first
time in many years, a woman strides freely
through the ruined streets, her face uncovered,
the burqa thrown back like a superhero’s cape. 

The long autumn sun, gone much too early
now, still casts the afternoon skyline in an odd,
shimmering blue pastel, the light filtered and
lazy across the fractured gray water, small pools
of stillness like mirrors, a gossamer silver haze
over everything, and the dark, late-November
trees strangely leafless in the tumid warmth.

His eyes bright with fear and resignation, his 
captors in felt hats and heavy flowing robes, 
an old man has his beard torn out in fistfuls 
before he is shot through the head in a jagged, 
burnt-bone sparkle of matted and bloody 
hair, his mouth still pleading after he is dead. 

Tracking brittle leaves into the house, finally 
autumn comes with them, blustering through 
the rooms and settling darker colors and cooler 
air everywhere. Now, it is just a moment from 
snowing, and in shadowy places, huddled in the 
coming cold, winter snaps, just out of sight, waiting 
to dress the land. Silent, scarred peaceful.