"Letter To Gail"--Or, as I would subtitle it, "Variation On The Book Of Ecclesiastes"

Barbara Crooker

You write, "Where has the fall fallen?"
and how time is escaping, leaking like a hiss
from a blue balloon.  Outside, the sky
is that lapidary azure of mid-October.
You rush from meeting to board room,
while each day the leaves shift
in color and tone, red-orange, green-gold.
When you turn, they've already fallen.
You write that you would like to stop working,
but phone messages and faxes pile up on the floor.
This air, so cold and clean you could bite it,
like an apple.  All of our stories have the same ending.
Still, we drone on, little bees, drive while listening
to voice mail, drinking take-out coffee, trying to do
too many jobs in too few hours.  You say you'd like to wake
up in the light, go for long walks with the dog, not answer
the phone for months.  Outside the window, the unreachable
sky, the burning blue fire.