-This poem reflects on an empty clothesline in early autumn, where the absence of summer laundry, a resting sparrow, and clothes drying near the stove reveal the household gradually moving indoors.
The clothesline stretches from the porch,
its wire bright with morning rain,
where sheets once billowed over grass
and shirts turned slowly in the sun.
Now only wooden clothespins wait,
their springs gone dark from years of use,
while maple leaves go sailing past
and catch against the garden gate.
A sparrow lands between the posts,
the wire bows beneath its feet,
then lifts again when wings release
and trembles after it has gone.
By dusk, the laundry dries indoors,
warm cotton near the kitchen stove,
outside, the empty line grows black
against a sky of fading gold.