I love a gray day. The darker the better and as a backdrop to the orange sherbet creamsicle leaves the season becomes a stunning revelation: life’s transitions hold a special beauty and we are here for an instant to notice. We might feel relief in this repeating cycle. We can depend on the unseen to return in the spring; revel in the bare branches that soon will be crackling and clicking together in the frozen winter air symphony. Bird Feeders and suet for our friends. We will plan to gather in the coming darkness, share stories. Celebrate. I want to list all these reminders. Watch the leaves pile into what will be part of a tree again, later.
“We are stardust. We are golden” Joni Mitchell
I’d like to share a fall poem hot off the press this morning and some others from past years. I hope you enjoy. In joy, Kerry Zagarella
Fall Plan
They all know where they are going
milkweed pod releases
wishes in the breeze
Monarchs dry their wings
stare off
clinging and pumping
wondering when their flight will
begin
again
The cries from above are urgent
assembled and orderly
They call to each other
“Stay with us”
All the signs are there
brown grasses promising spring
faded leaves fall
drained of life’s color
A final dance
to earth
Everything seems to have a plan
A place here
in the changing
I look on
and
the reaching begins
Branches up and out
Breath
Slows
One foot follows the next
Ticker Tape Wonder
When I say speckled pigment
or rustic hue
I am reminded of store bought mud
and painted rocks
The air is yellow or a worn gray felt
covered in grandmas tea stained doiley
Is it just all shades of Rust?
We try to call them colors
mesmerized by the beauty of old age
The dog eats acorns like a squirrel
Tail shivering
Teeth crackling
On the breeze an atmosphere of ticker tape wonder
Twirling tinsel glides as naturally as buried tears
effortless in beauty
The yellow sails of letting go
the birds perch
peck through the tough skin to devour
the village of artists
who live to create designs
that no one can see
till it is all over
and the pencil brown gray giant tumbles
into pieces belly up and dry
The green branches droop and everyone is thirsty and weary
A wonderful home for death
It decorates tree bones till wind steals it away
and there is no more but skeletons and winter sky
We can stare through the rain
Fumble through bird song
Curse through raking piles
But the field is getting closer
and the tall grasses stiffen while we tilt
and spin away
from the dying
to embrace the darkness
The shortest way
And the birds twinkle their sounds like shooting stars
Disappearing into the forest with my wishes
gravity pulls at my middle
Nothing is fast enough
Not even the hurtling
Trees
witness the spin as they twist and bend
there are no straight sticks
to be found
for the spaces in the hand woven fence at the end of the walk
only discarded branches still reaching
I walk along the crooked path with them searching
The shortest way between two points
Midnight Hour
The dried brown leaves
Cling to the
Midnight hour of the towering oak tree
It will all be over soon
I can hear their brittle bodies
Shiver as they try to slow time
They hang on
Pretending
I know this
Myself devoid of all color now
Afraid of what will come
As time moves forward
And the clock ticks back
We are going to sleep
We are going to sleep
It is dark
It is cold
We spin
We circle
Around our star
Hide and Seek
The ribbon of cucumber skin
held my hand captive
The cooling curls wrapping gently
around my pinky and thumb
A gift of pause
A message
This is your morning
Our day
Then the coffee grounds
blackening the silver sink
Like the dark clarity of midnight
delivering a crisp message
This is your morning
Our day
Moist coolness
Coffee brown
My life is luxurious
This moment
Eternal
I bow my head
not bothered by the sink full of food
Understanding wealth
not bothered by hand paralyzed by cucumber skin
Practicing breath
I will carry this hopeful song
this gift of time
Reverence again
unveiled
Hidden everywhere
always patiently
waiting
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