Another Autumn

By BRIGIT KELLY YOUNG

New York wraps itself
in pea coats.
The trees match the colors
of the taxis,
and the ramblings
of cell phones

become a strange new
human music –
our whale calls,
echoing on Chelsea side streets.
Who we are now
is who we have been.
Autumn has always
had this strange
melancholy.
And in the Amsterdam Avenue
ale house
another old man
tells his story
to whoever listens
while I write down
the same lines
as the year before.

 

Brigit Kelly Young’s poetry and fiction have appeared in journals that include Gargoyle Magazine, Drunken Boat Magazine, The North American Review, Eclectica MagazineMidwestern Gothic and 2 River View.

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Another Autumn

Related Posts

Porch view of Maine.

The Constancy of Ocean Sounds

JOHN T. HOWARD
Another morning in New Harbor arrives, this time with sun in place of cloud and fog. The waves, still audible, seem almost louder than yesterday. The dunting off in the near distance swallowed up by the constancy of ocean sounds. Tumult, clamor, crash.

art by jonathan ehrenberg

Two Poems by Erica Ehrenberg

ERICA EHRENBERG
Nearby, / women came out of the rubble / still pregnant years after / the children were conceived. / I kept you in, the women said, / because you were the pin / holding down the world

Two Poems by Heather Bourbeau

This forest is named for the first head of the National Forest Service, who warned of assuming natural resources were inexhaustible, who said without conservation we pay the price of misery, degradation, and failure, who asked if these resources were for the benefit of us all or for the use and profit of a few? He was also a leading eugenicist.