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I wrote this poem for fun one day, imagining how it would be to live a day backwards from dusk to dawn. Backwards What if instead of rising morn we peel the day backwards from dusk to dawn yawning to wakefulness finish the day before it’s begun Our stomachs full, without a bite of food the empty plate before us dessert before potatoes tasks done before we ever start hair combed as though there’d been no tangles clothing wrinkled after the iron What if we started the day at dusk peeled it backwards then tomorrow might be a fine day © Carolyn Wilker Published by Tower Poetry Society Summer 2017, Volume 66, No. 1

Are you enjoying summer? Eating fresh fruits and vegetables and getting enough sun. Just not too much to get a burn. That's good, since autumn follows and not far behind either. Let's enjoy the sunshine. My poem for today is about the season that follows. Read it and I hope you'll recognize how it starts to show up. Autumn Autumn weaves itself into summer nights ushers in cool air the first chance it gets           changes greens to splendid reds and yellows          nips the roses still in bud          steals kisses from the sun Autumn whispers to migrating birds encourages squirrels to fill their homes with food Autumn slips in so skillfully that it’s hard to tell just when summer ends and autumn begins

Billboards send some interesting messages, some better than others. I remember reading a particular one before I wrote a poem about it. I was thinking about a friend whom I couldn't contact. She'd moved away without a forwarding address. We later got in touch again when I saw the obituary of her husband in the paper. But while I was puzzled about where they went, I wrote this poem that was published by Tower Poetry Society (Summer 2009). The billboard says "Afford to retire" What does it mean? That I can afford to retire? That few can afford it? There was a number and a place retire in Elliot Lake    you once said Is that where you went? The day I called a mechanical voice said "This number is no longer in service" no forwarding number    nada I've searched the book    hoping to find you I wanted to say goodbye, hello, where are you A goodbye would have been kind a forwarding address even better ...

photo by C. Wilker Today it's snowing, just the light snowflakes borne by the wind. Tracks in my backyard make me think that some rabbits in the neighbourhood had quite a time in the crisp clean snow. We could ask, what if they had a party out there, but I think this was a smaller gathering or one rabbit frolicking around having fun, making his own tracks. Then I think of fields covered with snow and of corn stalk stubble showing through. When I was small, we always seemed to have a lake in one front field, a place that was lower than other areas, at least  until Dad hired people to lay tiles to drain the water from the surface and draw it away. What I remember is skating on the small body of frozen (not deep) water with corn stalks poking through at intervals. Dad brought a few straw bales out from the barn that we could sit on to put on our skates. We played hockey or just skated around the stubble. My memory in a poem: Frozen weeds were goalposts where...