Contributor: Don Mager

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Defiant in their clinging dry leaves,
aureoles of Hornbeam trees float in
a coppery glow. Backyard barren
trunks of Sycamores and Oaks and Elms
stand black in their widowed procession
up the hill and out to the wooded
stoic dusk’s afterglow. Spaced apart
in randomness, like ballerinas
frozen in silence on the edge of night’s
curtain fall, the glowing trees—half the
height or less of their mourning sisters—
balance on the toe-point of gold-tinged
stationary time. Neither curtain
nor applause, the dark’s embrace is stealth.


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Don Mager has published poems, chapbooks, books and translations since 1960. He is now retired and lives in Charlotte, NC.