by Floyd Skloot

I feel my body letting go of light
drawn to the wisdom of a harvest moon.
I feel it welcome the lengthening night
like a lover in early afternoon.

My dreams are windfall in a field gone wild.
I gather them through the lengthening of night
and when they have all been carefully piled
my body begins letting go of light.

Indian summer to leaf-fall to first frost
the memories that were carefully piled
become the dreams most likely to be lost.
My dreams are windfall in a field gone wild

now that memory has abandoned them
now that Indian summer, leaf-fall, first frost
have become the same amazing autumn
skein of those dreams most likely to be lost.

I feel my body letting go of light.
I feel it welcome the lengthening of night,
the windfall of dreams that have long been lost
to Indian summer, leaf-fall, and the first frost.

Floyd Skloot’s memoir In the Shadow of Memory won the 2004 PEN USA Literary Award, the Independent Publishers Book Award, and the Oregon Book Award, and was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the PEN Award for the Art of the Essay. Its sequel, A World of Light, was a NY Times Book Review Editors Choice Selection and is due out in paperback in fall 2008. His six collections of poetry include The End of Dreams (LSU Press, 2006), a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; Approximately Paradise (Tupelo Press, 2005), winner of the Pacific NW Booksellers Association Book Award; and the forthcoming Selected Poems: 1970-2005 (Tupelo Press, 2008) and The Snow’s Music (LSU Press, 2008). He is also the author of four novels, most recently Patient 002 (Rager, 2007). Skloot’s awards include two Pushcart Prizes and the inclusion of his work in The Best American Essays 1993 and 2000, The Best American Science Writing 2000 and 2003, The Best Spiritual Writing 2001. He lives in Portland, OR. view his website