Isabel Chenot

driving by an Orchard, late October
 
Behind repetitive, recessive rows 
of almond trees, radiance stutters: 
an open phoneme that won't close. 
It flickers to the west, while lateral gutters 
 
of long shadow interrupt its strobe. 
The orchard's shadows diagraph the road and flare  
across to dust and scrub. 
My inarticulable thoughts are there:  
 
fleeing, opaque, colliding with the sound of glare.

Isabel Chenot has loved, memorized, and practiced poetry all her remembered life. Some of her poems are collected in The Joseph Tree, available from Wiseblood Books.