David Lee was named the first Poet Laureate of Utah in 1997, and he has also received the Utah Governor’s Award for lifetime achievement in the arts. His work draws on a rich experience that includes seminary study, boxing, raising hogs, and becoming the only white athlete to play for the Negro League Post Texas Blue Stars. Retired from Southern Utah University, where he taught for more than three decades, Lee divides his time among Oregon, Nevada, and Utah.

Autumn Reverie

by David Lee

A strange odd lost duck day all over—
sunrise with a honed edge
like a table saw trembling to get started
on a bait of cured hickory
after an early moonset
left the rest of night dark
as a cast-iron skillet in need of bacon

and then day
when even the sky wore clouds like
a Halloween costume all along
and winds smelled and acted
as if they had dammed lingering Scotch broom–Tamarisk
on their breath like somebody’s great-grandmama
who dipped Levi Garrett & Sons Rappee snuff


not so much a day for the ages
but a day that seemed old, aged beyond
the call of time, when the sky felt like
a Spotted Poland China sow crawled on top of you
to lay and just wouldn’t move
considering you as the future
possibility of eternal and glorious mud


finally rescued by rising sparkle
in the coruscating twilight
scrubbing the sky into gem-glow
and then a crumpled moonlight
night sky of batter-crushed opals—
stars alight for their own joy
asking nothing of us but endurance


More from David Lee:

“The Dream of Adoration and Other Poems”