The sun is orange-red pumpkin-plump and ripe,
as if to prove stardust isn't inanimate.
Clouds pied on the horizon, day's embers.
Crickets fill the distance with their creed.
Maiden grass fills the proximate with swish.
This articulated world knocks at thought,
and yet, my Orpheus head is full of empty nest,
solitary as a church steeple, dry as August.
My brain is a tiger, "I am" its cage.