I’d noticed a red-tinged leaf here and there
on the vines over the past couple weeks
and the first flowering of goldenrod
along the roadside. I pretended
they were anomalies and ignored them
as best I could. But today the hints
of summer’s end were undeniable.
The trees are beginning to turn.
I imagine them in their crimsons
and golds beneath an autumn sky
and smile in anticipation of the coming
splendor. Yet summer’s warmth
is wrapping me in its comfort
and green fragrance, and inside me
I hear something cry,
“Don’t go! Don’t go! Don’t go!”