OCTOBER 13

OCTOBER 13

The leaves are scattering
and so too the people
who came to see them,
their glorious impermanence.

For a little while, until the snow,
I don’t have to wait in lines
at shops or cafés. I don’t have to
remember to stop and gaze myself:

those red maples, sugar maples,
popples gold against the evergreens.
Oaks will come later, but no one
comes here to see the somber oaks.

For a little while there is no demanding, 
just the ease of amber and gray,
the silence of these late days,
the beauty of this coming dark.

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