Tuesday Poem: “at Fossil Gorge” by James Norcliffe

at Fossil Gorge

That time of the year when the leaves fall,

branches emerge in the rocks below:

brachiopods, coral from an ancient sea.

The leaves are brown, yellow, the fossils

are white as time, but the turkey

buzzards are black and do not fall.

Instead they hover like silent blowflies,

wait and dip as funerary fishhooks or

gently flapping scissors wrapped in black

crepe, festooning the sky with menace.

A scatter of iron filings but purposeful;

black fillings in the mouth of the sky.

There is something...