Farewell to Autumn

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Jacqueline and her two girlfriends went trick or treating, orange sacs under their arms, leaves swirling around them down the moonlit streets.  This morning, Thomas cleaned snow and ice off the car. Jacqueline's door was frozen shut.  My teenager even wore a coat! When I dropped Jacqueline off at school, she went directly into the portable because the temperature was so low.

I came home and browsed on Facebook to find a photograph of a ripe red apple still hanging from the tree surrounded by a winter wonderland in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia.  I feel like that apple.  I still want to cling to the tree and hang on to autumn.  I'm not ready for the fierce winter winds, the frigid temperatures, the icy roads.

I want autumn to last forever.  I want to enjoy the coloured leaves on the trees, the flocks of birds soaring through the clear blue sky as they fly south, the gold chrysanthemums in the garden.  I want to rake leaves and bake pumpkin Bundt cake and watch the harvest moon rise over the horizon.  I want to enjoy the stillness of the season.  

As the ripe red apple still clings to the tree, snowflakes fall.  Farewell to autumn.

www.facebook.com/novascotiaphotos

November for Beginners

Snow would be the easy
way out -- that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield.  No dice.
We stack twigs for burning
in glistening patches
but the rain won't give.

So we wait, breeding
mood, making music
of decline.  We sit down
in the smell of the past
and rise in a light
that is already leaving.
We ache in secret,
 memorizing

a gloomy line
or two of German.
When spring comes
we promise to act
the fool.  Pour,
rain!  Sail, wind!
with your cargo of zithers!

Rita Dove

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/323/8/9/november_for_beginners_by_iampoetry-d5lk9at.jpg