As if a curtain had been raised to reveal
a whole new setting for the next act
of the play, the field stood transformed.
Gone were the gold and crimson hills.
Gone the goldenrod. In their place,
a wonderland stands, with pale, bare
sycamore branches dancing before
the dark hills with the last russet oaks.
And at their feet, acres of goldenrod,
now dried and white and fluffy as cotton,
paint a view of things to come.
The three of us, laughing, walk through
the billowing stalks and Betsy says
their tops look like the hats that elves wear.

The breathing earth sighs in contentment.
This is her season of rest. The ten thousand
leaves have fallen; soon the snow will come.
Beneath the waters, fish find their warm depths.
The creatures of the land snuggle in their burrows.
Everything waits. What comes next is grandeur.
And this, my child, is the great pause.

I glance through the tree house window,
a wave of condensation at its base,
a product of the cold of the late afternoon.
The boughs of the spruce surrender their color
to the shadows, but beyond them a faint light
lingers in the mist, and the distant lavender hills
rise to a soft golden sky. “Self portrait.” The words
float into my mind, the view becoming a mirror.

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 my feet,
as I walk this field, only faded, fallen leaves remain.
The brush that surrounds me is brittle and gray
and tangled with burrs and knife-edged thorns.

But if I follow the path and keep climbing,
wound around the trees to the east
I’ll come across a patch of bittersweet vines,
their berries 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. “Test it,” they say.
“These lanterns aren’t here for nothing.
It could be that they’re meant for you.”

Softer than breath, the spirits of the fallen ones
rise free, etching on our minds the memory
of their summer days. Oh, how they danced then,
so supple and alive, as green and shining as the breeze.
We thought they would go on forever,
so joyous was their song. Now, as we gaze
at the emptiness of the spaces they once filled,
we are bereft. The world is not the same
without them, nor will it be, ever again.
There’s little but our souls we would not give
to look once more into their faces, to feel their bodies,
warm beneath our fingertips.
But no, the spaces that were theirs are vacant now,
except for this river of tears and the acrid taste of pain.
And how we cling to our anguish, for it’s all we have left,
just this, to fill the unfillable spaces.
Yet, despite our pleas – Don’t take my pain!
It’s all I have now! – eventually the last tear dries,
leaving only the space and its ringing silence
and this late autumn breeze that we would not trade,
so tender and deep is its song.

I have no idea what prompted me to climb
this hill. I haven’t been up here in two years,
maybe longer. But I nearly floated to the top,
entranced by the beauty of it all. And now,
my reward: this view, and look, how perfect
is it that the young family I saw down below
is making the climb. Ha! The littlest one
looks three quarters of a century younger
than I. And here we all are, in this woods,
its song singing all around us.

The deer. I think they’re appearing now
in my dreams, messengers of some sort.
I wouldn’t have seen this one, distant
as he was and a wall of twigs between us,
but for the way he leaped up the hill.
I stepped to my side to get a better view
and when I looked again, he was gone.
In a flash. Just like that. But I felt him.
So I stood still, barely breathing, staring.
And so did he, from right there, by the fallen log,
still as could be, barely breathing, staring
right back. A flicker of acknowledgment
shot between us, signaling our respect
for one another. Then we moved on.

A shaft of late afternoon light spills
across the fallen sycamore leaf,
its broad ivory underside facing up from a bed
of crumpled maples, and a single gray maple
resting atop it, tenderly, it seems, grace notes
of red, green and yellow flowing past, the whole
of it breathing some soft, nostalgic song.
It carries me into a dream of a quilt that covered
my great grandmother’s bed, where I would
fall asleep gazing at its patterns and the stitches,
so tiny, so carefully placed, while she cooked
in the kitchen, quietly singing that her bonny
lies over the ocean, over the sea. I watch my mind
place the image of these November leaves
atop my grandma’s quilt, and I nod, smiling.

“Nesting bird,” some voice said. And after that
I couldn’t see it any other way. Words do that.
They hold things fixed in time. “Of course
you would see nests and birds,” another voice,
more from the left brain side of things, said
in a most reasonable tone. All this chatter!
I look again. I know it was once a great tree.
I photographed it myself. I think how it took
tens and tens of years and weather to render
this design And here we are, gazing at it,
our imaginations weaving stories, the whole
of us awake with interest and appreciation.

I wait for these, these sycamore leaves and oaks,
the last to fall, some of the sycamores larger than my face,
all of them larger than my palm, and so rich in color.
This is the quilt’s top layer, the topmost shield against the snow,
coming soon now, snow. But not today. Today is still warm
and the burnished umber of the fallen sycamores and oaks
spreads itself beneath the tall trunks of the mighty ones
who bore them. I breathe their fragrance, their songs
rustling around my ankles as I walk.