Autumn Call

By Bert Barry

What impelled him to abandon
warmth – comfort
the security of his house
he would never know
but on a chill October night
he found himself peering
--only aided by
a single powerful flashlight—
avidly – eagerly
poised to enter
the narrow path opening among
rows of dry – dusty corn
long past the time for harvesting.

He had never noticed
such a path before
now it beckoned to him
irresistible as
the call to spring planting.
What – good or ill – awaited him within
he could not predict
nor could he resist
the overpowering summons.

Bert Barry’s poems have appeared in Bellowing Ark, the California Quarterly, Poetalk, Green’s Magazine, Ginger Hill, Iconoclast, Philadelphia Poets, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Brushfire, and The Oak.