Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season <br />Changes its tense in the long-haired maples <br />That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves <br />Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition <br />With the final remaining cardinals) and then <br />Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last <br />Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground. <br />At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees <br />In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager <br />And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever <br />Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun <br />Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance, <br />A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud <br />Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything <br />Changes and moves in the split second between summer's <br />Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment <br />Pulling out of the station according to schedule, <br />Another moment arriving on the next platform. It <br />Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away <br />From their branches and gather slowly at our feet, <br />Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving <br />Around us even as its colorful weather moves us, <br />Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets. <br />And every year there is a brief, startling moment <br />When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and <br />Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless <br />Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: <br />It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; <br />It is the changing light of fall falling on us.<br /><br />Edward Hirsch<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fall-37/
