Fall is the time for forgetting,
For sensing all you can be and letting it go,
Like the branches release the full-bodied leaves
And reject the sun that even now swims in our midst,
To await scarcity with an uncluttered mind
Like the inscrutable tree, without expectation,
Wholly itself when only surviving
When almost asleep.
But, no, everything is ripe for burning,
And we confront such abundance by tearing a swath through the center of it.
We eat, greedy to receive all that is finally ready:
The amber guitar, now dry and crisp enough to strum,
The valleys of tossed salad, the yielding paths,
The exotic birds that pass strange, wide spaces above us.
The wind blows the leaves like pages in a book
We finally can read
The aromas of Summer's past.
The cool makes it clear, the warm brings it near,
So magnified, these gusts of dying efflorescence
Make us finally aware,
Make us finally strive.
