This Morning From The Porch Poem by Deborah DeNicola

Unbearable brilliance. Each leaf surrendering
to the late ceremony of sun. The neighbor's tomato plants
have fallen through the slats in the white fence
and in the breeze, there's no denying autumn.
I keep my windows open despite the chill.

This afternoon I read how Blake thought man was bound
to the worm since God created Adam from clay and earth.
His painting shows Elohim's hands on Adam's head,
both their expressions, contorted and tormented.

From across the street tonight a child hollers twenty times
Nobody likes me, Nobody likes me— All day I have not spoken,
so I call from my window I do, I do! Though I'm not sure
which child it is that cried or for how long I could abide him.

I think of Blake's red color print, the huge serpent
wound around Adam's legs. Creation then, is spirit
trapped in form, the first stage of the fall.

When the lousy movie on TV ends with a brutal death,
I stand by the window weeping into the cicadas.
Something palpable rises and multiplies in the darkness.
Free-floating between breaths, it deepens down to the worm.

I remember Adam's dark red fruit and the struggle up from mud.
I cry for summer's end and for the child no one likes.
For humankind and the green world's serpents.
I am crying because I cannot bear imagining more love.