“October, and the sun burnishes”
—for Louise, in memoriam
October, and the sun burnishes the leaves so brightly you
cast your gaze down, but there’s no real relief with
the same leaves at your feet blazing in heaps and
long reefs of color. You take a seat on the
porch and rest yourself. You’re old, old enough, and getting
older, and the one realization that means anything in the
moment is that the sun will set, and the autumn
hues around you will become more muted, less piercing. This
is the foreknown declination that once so disconcerted you and
now provides comfort. The earth: culling, to then give forth.
