Autumn

Somewhere the air is crisp, the leaves are orange, and sweaters warm chilled bodies.  I dream of autumns past, especially on a day like today with recorded temperatures north of 100 degrees.  Although a pleasant, warm, cross-breeze visits me tonight, I still long for a quintessential October.

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this Now, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, modlering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries — roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay — how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Mary Oliver