Mountain Road

John Engels
Low on the mountain road this year as every year
too early in August and plain before me on the mountain road overnight from the maple erupt vermilion leaves
that shake with a light that falls on the road
as on a body of still water. Before such light in such a climate contradiction lacerates the heart:
I must be innocent of everything, and yet somehow exasperate the season
for there before me is discourse plain enough,
and I have continued unwary.
Page 99, Poetry Ireland Review Issue 28