fall

by

The Fall

from verdant green
to flaming colors
no rainbow ever dreamed
but the trees dare

from flourishing fields
of growing grain
to shorn earth
of tawny stubble

the wheel turns
once more
the year
draws to a close
and the growing season
meets its maker

whirlwinds skitter
across the path
stirring more poignantly
whatever wistful nostalgia
might have blossomed
late before the frost

this perishing moment
too
is an eternity

by

First Hints of Fall

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Though we are weeks away from the true beginning of Autumn and the change in weather, there are always foreshadowings that occur long before the season arrives.

The honking of Canada Geese from overhead – small family flocks, this year’s hatchlings, flying for the first time.  Preparing for their long migration to come.

Acorns, (the Oak-Corn) falling to the ground, which everyone associates with Autumn, actually happens in late August each year, and has already begun.

Also in August, invariably to my recollection, we suddenly have a spat of very cool, fall-like weather, right in the midst of the heat of late summer.  Which we just experienced these last two days.

And this cool spell casts a spell upon certain of the trees, coaxing them to scatter a few yellowed leaves upon the ground.

Thoreau said:  “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”

We are awash in the constant flow.  In the ticking of the clock. In the earth’s incremental journey around the sun.  In the joy of watching children grow up.  In the aging of our own bodies.  And yet each moment speaks to us of eternity.