The fireflies are dark. Katydids are quiet.
In the orchard, fruit fall startles deer.
Wind chimes sound oddly dull single notes.
Window cricket singing a death song too early.
Temperature falling, I pull blankets around us.
Plant bulbs and hope you’ll see spring.
Watch celestial showers – Draconids, Orionids, Taurids, Leonids.
Observe wildlife change habits as the trees
change colors. Practice being an evergreen.
Feel the equinox and balance straight up.
I do make many (too many) lists of things to do. I have written about this addiction. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it hurts. I even have seasonal lists of things I need to do in the garden or around the house. A season changes and I change the filters in my furnace and air-conditioning system. Frost comes and I dig up the dead and dying annuals, rake leaves, and add them to the compost.
A group emailed me a list of things to do in autumn. It has lots of the usual things: leaf peeping, apple picking, making and eating fall comfort foods, carving pumpkins, and jumping in leaf piles. But some things on my fall list don’t appear there.
These mild, like summer, autumn days float
with gossamer clouds and filmy spider webs
moving slightly in the breeze and geese
wedging to the lake overhead as I
take off my goose-down vest and rest.
“Goose Summer” is a Middle English term for this kind of late summer weather. See my etymological explanation at whynameitthat.blogspot.com/…indian-summer-gossamer-and-goose-summer
I saw the maple flames last week.
Rain and wind and this square canvas
has returned to a simple line drawing.
A new beginning, a few remaining leaves
suggesting what the creator has in mind.
Writing the Day 