Autumn's Month, October

September rolls to an end,

gaining momentum as the days fly by,

the days shortening and the nights made longer.

Cold evening breezes shake the trees outside my window;

the oak and maple leaves hold tight to each other

and cry out in dry voices, rattling, keeping me awake

as I lie here, warm under a quilt, newly added

in the dropping temperatures of nighttime falling,

shutting off the warmth of daylight, September hastening

down toward slow October, Autumn’s month, a time to remember: 
clear dark skies and morning chills, frost covering the grass,

and the scrapings of cast off leaves rattling across the lawn

to gather along the fence, a time of gathering up,

setting aside for the winter months ahead.

And listening to September rolling to an end

while Autumn’s month sneaks slowly in, gathering up,

I think of the years passing, other autumns, long ago,

and a hazy smoke rising gray against the waning green

of summer turning orange and rust and red and brown,

a hazy smoke lingering acrid, drifting upward  

from burning leaves, smoldering piles watched carefully

by old men propped up, leaning themselves on old rakes,

watching and remembering, too, drifting off perhaps

with the smoke, hazy and acrid in their recollections,

a gray smoke smoldering the memories of September

rolling to an end, shortened days and nights made longer,

the dry leaves calling to remind me, keeping me awake,

as September rolls to an end into Autumn’s month, October.