Season of memories unbidden and unsettled
The greens and yellows flecked with ruddy brown
Upon the tulip trees harbingers of change
Sudden unbidden startling every year

After the crazylong school vacation
Famously briefer each successive summer
Suddenly back to the scheduled regimen
Morning prayers and the pledge of allegiance

Images so vivid they might as well be memories
How you might wander naked through the forest
After getting bashed on the head
Untroubled about where you’re going to find a forest

Those general memories we call history
The cotton fields alongside the interstate
Their bony stalks supplicating the sky
A few ungleaned bolls clinging trembling to the fence

And farther south the sandy dunes
Dotted with oats
Blown into fantastic shapes
Like snowdrifts in Indiana