On Being Surprised By Fall

Regret

A lover of summer’s lush greens,

I felt betrayed by the cherry trees

That began to drop yellow leaves

Some time over the Labor Day weekend.

 

Shocked at the sight, I looked around

And saw the ginkos had joined in. Their

Leaves, which usually fling gold to the

Autumn air after the oranges and reds

 

Have done a danse macabre in the gutter,

Displayed a suspicious tinge. The honey locusts

Confirmed my fears, some of their branches

Washed with bright ochre.

 

Not the fried brown edging of city foliage

In a dry August, these leaf guilder portend

A change of season. Perhaps the rising

Cricket chorus should have warned me,

 

But the usual emissaries hadn’t made their

Visits, leaping urgently on the kitchen floor,

Trilling their recitatives from secret hiding places.

Maybe they, too, had assumed a later fall, and

 

Were still polishing the lyrics of their seasonal

Opera when the curtain rose on a changed scene.

But here’s the thing. Maybe it’s not the timing,

Sooner or later than expected, but the reminder

 

To be prepared, hunker down, stock the pantry,

Gather the firewood, acknowledge the darkness,

That matters. Because just as there is high summer,

There is also February when only the evergreens

 

Stand cloaked in color, and if you had known,

You would have bottled the light, laid in a

Store of cheer, and woven a beautiful cloak

Of warm, soft yarns, large enough to share.

 

 

 

Luckily this year, I’m fully aware that fall is on the way, inexorably. Still, I hope to bottle a bit more light in the next few weeks before the equinox takes away any vestige of deniability.