Memory of Autumn

I could taste that it had happened there

Though I could not see the ghosts -

Their wagons riding up

With sinners in their carts -

But I could see the hill.

And I could see the mud my boots pushed into

Just as their shoes had probably

Been caked up after rain.

I could smell their rain 

As a gray sky descended

And the trees of autumn

That soaked into my chest

Almost suffocated me with memory

I knew was not my own.

I knew that it had happened there

The way the scent of rotting wood

Still lingered in the air.