Questions of the Tenth Month

Did I really think I was different

from stiff brown leaves

blown clattering down the road?

 

Did I really think I was not the same

as ancestors of my ancestors;

boy, girl, wolf;  boy, girl, wolf; seated around the fire,

eyes alight with dreams of  forests? 

 

Did I think I was longer than memory,

taller than my shadow?

 

Have I not bled from birth; solely into Earth?

How did this escape me; 

my loosening grip on time? 

 

These tenth-month questions

I ask the Sun. 

Again, at night, the Moon.

 

Lost, naked, tremulous,

I assume obsequious postures,

terminally disingenuous.