Winter Crept In

Winter crept in, cold and wet,

like fog across the water,

bearing on a silver platter

the promise of snow

while we slept, dreaming and warm.

Heightened Synchronicity

(An apparently meaningful coincidence in

time of two or more similar or identical

events that are causally unrelated.)

The men of science call it “senescence,”

what we all face, deterioration and our own mortality,

a storing away for the encroaching cold,

dormant in the winter months ahead.

“Chlorophylls breaking down give rise to carotenoids

and anthocyanins,” they tell us, turning green leaves

to red and yellow, orange to brown, and dropping,

floating down to coat my lawn, covering it in muted hues.

Sighing, I begin the task of raking and removing,

piling high faded leaves, bagging them to be taken away

or burned on a smoldering heap; leaning heavy on my rake,

a thin trail of acrid smoke rises, igniting memories.

It’s become an almost daily task now, combing the yard

again and again, piling and bagging, burning,

a reminder of my own impending doom, remembering.

But for me, rather, no man of science,

Autumn is a backroad trip, a wandering taken slowly,

or a wooded trail, sunlight reflected, splashed

on earth’s fall colors, heightened and vivid,

changing as summer fades too quickly to fall.

The air is cool, a refreshment in these shortened days,

winter yet too far away to be a bother, time still

to watch the seasons change and to reflect -

         Autumn’s kaleidoscopic display recycles once again

         as will Spring’s, arriving in its own time, nature’s way.

Autumn, now, expresses my own life’s journey

through these changes around me, recycled and renewed in time,

even as I pull a rake around my yard,

green leaves turned to red and yellow, orange to brown,

a phenomenon I can’t explain, nor care to –

living it is enough for me.

Laetoli

At Laetoli … hominid footprints are preserved in volcanic rock 3.6 million years old and represent some of the earliest signs of mankind in the world.

Before we learned to count,

how long did we live?

Before we named the days

and months and seasons,

how did we know that time

had passed, only that light

followed darkness, warmth

followed cold, new growth

followed death, and death followed living?

A child born became a man

and there was no measure for his life,

nothing to measure his time passing,

only change, then death,

a beginning and an ending filled,

knowing only that he had lived;

and what did he leave behind

in his ageless passing?

Just himself and his footsteps

trod upon the earth.

Laetoli Footprints

This land

we till and over which we toil,

suffering as we do the curse of Adam

by the sweat of our brows to eat,

the price of a piece of fruit denied

and taken, toiling to the ends of our lives,

this land forgives, and gives us still what we need

to sustain us, mind and spirit and body.

It asks in return little, only

what it gives to us first and nothing more -

just ourselves and preservation, the fruits of our labor,

and kindness, in kind, sustenance enough to keep it,

too, sustained for the seasons that lie ahead.

In My Back Yard

In my back yard, a tree is dying.

It’s dead, really, or nearly dead,

some little green adorning its top

amid the dry and brittle branches hanging low.

I know I should cut it down,

should have cut it down years ago,

that spring when few leaves came

for summer shade; no black buds had formed,

bursting open unseen, no shoots of leaves sprouting.

Its bark now is dull, its aspen-shine gone,

peeling, cracking, cracked already,

long black lines splintering and tearing.

The tree, too, is beginning to lean some, tipping,

off-kilter, more angled in these passing years, as if,

tired, to lay itself down, couched, a needful rest.

But it presents no hazard, tilted, no danger except to itself,

and perhaps, someday, it will fall over, not at my hands,

but in a strong wind, a summer storm, gusting;

its branches will scratch at the air and frantically

grasp at nothing, and falling, leave only a gaping hole

where once it stood, rooted, standing strong once,

but finally succumbing, giving in, falling as we all must.