Fall in Sardine Canyon

The unsavory call of work lead me
one late summer day to drive
through an irrigous canyon where you
appeared to me as a misty rain.
Faint, I thought you to be
in my thoughts, but that glow still 
burns through, just like one
closing their eyes and still seeing
the forest of red maple trees that hugs and kisses
those mountains between Brigham City and Logan
in autumn.

The fog of that tenacious rain blanketed
the suant surface of Mantua reservoir
as if it did not want to let go,
as if it had shared my orphic memory
of you,
and I shuddered at such warm thoughts.
The winding road now resembled a long, carpeted hallway
garlanded with yellow and orange and amethyst
boughs that wavered gently,
and the green ones, so few that were left,
dripped gossamer tears of rain.
O, those colors blurred as my mind wandered
treacherously back, the road slick with rain or
tears or absent minded saliva.
I rolled the windows down, permitting the cool air
to enhance my delirium.
Guiding the car to a halt, I stepped out.

I wanted to be as those mountains,
Standing, rising, climbing to meet
the torrent of rain, to you again.
I became one of them,
raising my arms to the sky
and letting the fog blanket me
like it does Mantua.