Carla Galdo

Imminence

The mums we salvaged from a pot last year

are blooming now, with orange and blood red

striated petals that all seem to jeer

how summer’s days are plummeting ahead

to fall. The geese fly over, picturesque

as arrows piercing through a canvas stretched

across the sky. The stores’ hay-baled burlesque

begins: piled pumpkins, scarecrows’ faces etched

with grins. False prophets, these, with sightless eyes,

who’ve never mourned the winnowing of wheat,

or watched a cornfield shrivel as it dries,

or pulled their ragged coats so buttons meet.

We rattle in the winds, avert our gaze,

and hurry through our waning round of days.


Carla Galdo has written essays and poetry for various groups and publications, including Well-Read Mom, Humanum, Dappled Things, and Modern Age. Carla earned an MTS from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas-Houston. She and her husband live with their six children on a small hobby farm in Virginia.