JOHN WALSER

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The Day After the Downpour

The day after the downpour 

the autumn leaves 

that haven’t begun to turn 

look more vinyl, revived: 

 

or maybe I just want that: 

the rejuvenation of soak 

so that when I go out 

this afternoon and let 

myself get drenched 

as I pick the newest tomatoes: 

two of them orange 

as forest fire smoke suns: 

the ash refraction that splashes 

pale light like stained glass stone 

on the sideyard, in the kitchen 

where I will slice both 

for us later for lunch: 

 

I can believe I will be  

washed with something vital 

some fountain renewing 

body and brain to give me 

forty, fifty more years 

of planting and pruning 

and tending and being tender 

and loving and being loved by you 

no matter how grey this sky.

b 

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JOHN WALSER’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Spillway, Water-Stone Review, Plume, Posit and december magazine.  His manuscript Edgewood Orchard Galleries has been a finalist for the Autumn House Press Prize, the Ballard Spahr Prize, and the Zone 3 Press Prize as well as a semifinalist for the Philip Levine Prize and the Crab Orchard Series First Book Award. A four-time semifinalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize, as well as a Best New Poets, a Pushcart, and a Best of the Net nominee, John is a professor of English at Marian University and lives in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, with his wife, Julie. 

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