Category: Autumn Anthems

Fallen branches rise from the creek bed
like the sloughed off antlers of the old buck,
bedded down now, hiding from the hunters.
I wish him good cover and safety for the season.
The color of the fallen leaves that blanket
the woods will match his pelt. Nature provides.
I can see him standing by these waters
at dawn, drinking his fill, then disappearing.
Let the hunters go home empty-handed.
Their cupboards do not lack for food.
It is a great gift just to roam these banks.
Let the creek’s peace be your prize for the day.

Jack stopped by this morning.
It was a quick visit, a liitle hello
that ended before ten. Months
had passed since he was last here,
and, as I said, he didn’t stay.
Still, images of him drifted
across my mind the whole day.
With a few sweeps of his brush
he caught the colors of the sunrise
in broad, feathery swaths,
and behind them, fragile stands
rose from the depths, like secrets
yet to be revealed. He’ll come
again, paint another story. I’ll wait.
Oh, Jack, what pictures you leave
in my mind, even when all signs
of you have melted away.

This time of year, when the clouds cover the sky
and the nights come all too soon, it can feel
as if all the color has drained from the world.
The summer song of the trees has given way
to their clattering in the cold wind.
At your feet, only faded, fallen leaves remain.
The brush that surrounds you is gray
and tangled with burrs and knife-edged thorns.
Even the pond is dull, its inhabitants
and visitors asleep now or gone.

But if you follow the path and keep climbing,
wound around the trees to the east
you’ll come across a patch of bittersweet vines,
their berries looking like lanterns gleaming
through the gloom. The old timers say
there’s a legend that if you gaze at them
and listen for what they have to say
they will tell you secrets that fill you
with understanding. “Give it a try,” they say.
“Those lanterns don’t grow here for nothing.
It could be that they’re meant for you.”

This must be what it’s like to be an ant,
tall pillars rising all around you, the hilly ground
with its pebbles and twigs beneath your feet
as you walk in silence, one attentive step after another.

I suppose ants don’t see the bright spray
of red leaves caught in the pine’s boughs
like some Christmas decoration. Their world
differs so much from mine, although we
are a part of each other’s, inextricably.

Do the pines know that leaves dance in their arms?
Some part of me believes they do, that they know
vast swaths of the world beyond my own perception.
They are old, after all, having lived on this earth
twice as long as I have. They have risen high
above the earth that holds their sprawling roots.
They commune with sky and wind and birds
and know the seasons. They listen to the stars.

When I walk among them, awe fills me, and wonder.
I touch their rugged bark and breathe their fragrance.
I see their fallen cones and the stems of the cones
left after the squirrels have pulled off their scales
to feast on the hidden nuts. I laugh at the heaps
of them piled between the roots of the trees.
The squirrels here, I see, are well nourished.
And as I walk here, so am I.

Every morning, as soon as I leave my bed,
I open the drapes of the studio window
as if I’m pulling back the curtains on a play’s
opening scene. Today, the view surprises me
with snow-powdered leaves and logs
on the slope of the western hill. A flurry
of flakes dashes by. I don’t take it as an omen.
It’s what it is and I celebrate it for that
and consider it a gift, regardless of
its mood. Thus it begins, I say to myself,
feeling blessed that I am seeing it,
and that this is what I see. And I turn
and go about my day. But this morning,
before my eyes leave the scene,
a buck emerges from the upper woods
and walks down the hill, his rack held high,
stopping before he gets to the road
to listen and to watch. He waits.
An oil truck passes. Then he walks across
the road and bounds down to the field
where apple trees and a sleeping doe wait.
Thus it begins, I think to myself.
I notice that I am smiling.

Yesterday’s taste of snow is nowhere in sight.
Only its cold remains, and its clouds, riding the wind.
At the field’s edge a row of weathered goldenrod bobs
like the old men who gather for coffee and gossip
at the town’s cafe at seven o’clock every morning.

Did you hear about Elmer and the row he got into?
You can’t really blame him, though. That’s right.
I would have done the same thing myself–or worse!

They tell their rambling stories and haul out
old jokes, and laughter dances with their clanking
spoons, and then, for a moment they grow still,
memories floating behind their lowered eyes,
They lick sticky glaze from their fingers
and drips of coffee from the sides of their cups.
Then one of them says the keyword from the joke
that had them laughing before, and they start
all over again, nodding and remembering the days
when they were still golden, and content
in the gold of the now,

Despite the sliver of cowardice and dread
that pokes up from my memory of snow’s
dangers and cold, the child in me wins out.
“Look!” she shouts, all excited and glad,
“It’s snowing!” She tells me what to do.

You zip up your jacket and tie the hood,
and pull on your boots and your mittens.
See? Then you just dash out the door.
You hold up your arms, throw back your head,
stick out your tongue and taste the cold.
Then you twirl and twirl and dance.
You just twirl and twirl and dance.

I suppose it was because the week was warm
and we were all pretending summer was still here.
Whatever it was, the wetlands shocked me.
Reeds that were green mere days ago
were as white as the bare limbs of the sycamores.
The pond was all but gone, revealing the seaweed
that soon would turn cranberry red, just in time
for the coming holidays. The water fowl and blackbirds
were gone now, and the crickets and frogs.
But above the rise behind the pond, a freight train
rumbled past, providing sound to break the silence.

The seasons pass so swiftly. Just yesterday you
were still here, smiling into my eyes, saying
I love you as you said goodbye. And now,
you, too, are gone. At least from my sight.
In my heart, you are here, every bit as tangible
as summer’s song, and like summer, forever
warm and welcome, and shining with light.

Thick, low clouds covered the sky
as I drove about on some errands.
Now and then, tiny snowflakes darted
through the air, melting as quickly
as they had appeared. Overnight,
the world had turned cold and gray.
Definitely. I murmured, it’s November.
But then, as I turned into the plaza,
a splash of color caught my eye.
Roses! I could hardly believe it.
I parked and walked over to them,
touching one finger to a delicate petal
and bending to inhale the scent.
For a moment, all the darkness
disappeared, and I was warmed
as if by a lover’s kiss. Sometimes
the world says Yes.