Essex, Ontario

back in Essex County

this morning
the haze across
the yellowed bean fields
like mist of mountain river
on a morning like this
when I ate rice congee
and saw fishermen casting
hand-nets
from the banks
when the Yangtze
had not yet reached the
markers
readied for the dam

I drive the same road
of so many late Septembers
when pumpkins ripen
like globes rolled in
fallow fields
when the chill of endings
drifts as mist
a pair of white horses
motionless at the fence

Dorothy Mahoney