Readied

Autumn is but half-way done,

half-way to winter’s scheduled date,

yet a winter wind comes early, blowing in

cold and strong, reconnoitering, perhaps,

our readiness for the season ahead:

corded wood cut and split and stacked

to stoke the hearth and stove

against the cold; and provisions laid in,

stored up, in case, just in case, the heavy snows

and storms forecast should strand us, cabin-bound;

and our spirits, too, readied, anticipatory and joyful

about the changes changing the landscape

and our lives, lives bound to the seasons here,

coming when they do, in their time, and leaving,

leaving us, like the seasons themselves, altered,

readied for the seasons ahead, the seasons

of our own lives, changed and changing.