when autumn flares out

-

Had a lovely day with some friends last weekend at a local oktemberfest celebration . . . we bought a little disposable camera to document the day along the way and these are (some of) the results. Root beer + the first time wearing sweaters + wandering through old neighborhoods and churchyards + listening to records + long train rides into the city + zucchini races + the smell of smoke + the Western Philosophers + mugs of duchess grey tea.

Happy first day of fall . . .

Fall Song
by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.