Intimations of Autumn

("Early Fall View, Palo Alto Baylands" by David Saltaire)

It begins now

although days are still heated.

It begins in deep night

where the cold coils and waits;

it is there in the morning

where the crisp snap of air

makes me reach for my jacket

the light one I bring out

with one missing button .

 

I feel it now

in the ruddy sun’s setting,

in the damp under  trees.

in the midnight it’s creeping

in the rush of water 

soft, in the old meadow

in the business of birds

and soft, timid mammals,

geese huddling, planning

ancestral arc of migration

 

 

I feel them now

as they test heavy wings

in the still of the cooling,

sapphire skies

growing restless in flight

I feel them weigh time,

watching the hours

without knowing they do this

but, soon they must fly.

 

 

Yes, it’s coming in echoes

from summers now past

when in spirals life winds

through it’s course, once again.

I don’t go to meet

what’s coming for me

but I won’t resist the

pull of its will;

I’ll go where I’m led,

with philosophical grace

and pass through the valley

of fall’s unsteady light

to the palace of winter’s

dark, icy might.

Oh, yes,  it is coming

from this very night.