Leaves fall,
uncloaking the grand oak.
The cricket’s song
drifts away with the breeze.
But the delicate Japanese maple
remains glorious and resplendent.
*
Lying under a charcoal sky,
leaves falling like memories of time past,
I turn my head and see you
in the distance.
You-the ruby-haired queen
standing on the rampart
watching battle weary soldiers fall.
And I understand hope.
Originally posted on Quirk N Jive on May 22, 2015
The quaint New England village
in mid-October.
Antique shops, country stores.
White-steepled churches
set against the backdrop
of fall’s spectacular display
of crimson and gold foliage
And the old New England home.
Her porch adorned with cornstalks and pumpkins.
Her flowerbeds full of yellow and rust-colored mums.
Arrogantly she stands.
She knows her admirers.
How they delight in her unassuming
beauty.
So simple.
Tasteful.
Smart.
She leaves her admirers to wonder
whether she is listed in the registry
of historic homes.
No one
not even she
acknowledges that her charms will fade
with the dropping of the leaves.
*
Be patient.
Wait a bit.
Four weeks perhaps.
Then visit again.
This time
go on in.
Meet her.
Push open the door that doesn’t quite want to give.
She’s not easy, you know.
Hear the creak of the plank floor as you step inside.
Smell the mothballs
and the scent of doorknobs
touched too many times
by so many hands
that the odor
that’s permeated their surfaces
can never be removed.
Smell the faint aroma
of dried out pot roasts
from dinners that stole away days.
Feel the lifeless still
of 4:00
on a Sunday afternoon
in November.
Sit in the chair by the window
and see the world
from that filmy view.
The gray sky.
The skeleton trees.
Now, turn your gaze back inside
and watch the dust
dance
in the late autumn sun
that streaks tauntingly through the glass.
And watch
as a single particle
settles itself atop one of the many knickknacks
that sits lazily
upon the mantel.
Hear the clock.
Each tick
reminding you
of how very long
a day can be.
In the sickening stillness
feel the unbearable loneliness.
Catch your breath.
Breathe in deeply.
Push the air past
the knot
in your throat.
As you sit, feel the house.
The weight
of her past.
So close, really.
What’s 200 years?
Certainly not enough time
for the departed
to resign themselves
to their fate.
* This piece was originally published on Quirk N Jive on October 24, 2015.
Dark, Light
Cruel, Kind
The juxtaposition of the golden maple with this gray November sky-
the leaves illuminated, not by light
not by anything other than the contrast between her and the ashen curtain in front of which she stands.
Like this long ride through the country to see you.
The fear of what lies ahead.
The sadness of what is.
Perhaps it is the contrast between what I see
and what I feel
that makes this landscape so beautiful
that makes these trees so magical
that brings the awareness that in the darkness
there is light.
There is something about the season of fall that lends itself to writing. I can think of many reasons why this is, but, for me, it is the quiet.
Summer with her symphony of fireworks and lawn mowers has ended, and now we are left with the gentle whispers of crickets as they pass from this place to another. We are now left in the stillness of a season that comes between the summer’s obligatory happiness and the winter holidays’ forced merriment.
Autumn seems to grant the writer permission to feel deeply and express the broad range of emotions that we sometimes subconsciously suppress. It allows us to be present amidst the great beauty of amber and gold leaves as they fall to the ground, to sense the nervous excitement of the animals as they rush to gather the food required for survival during the long winter and to feel the sadness that comes from the loss of life that once thrived in the warmth and light of summer.
I hope that this fall yields you a bountiful harvest of writing-poems, stories, songs, posts, articles. For me, throughout this month of November I will be posting new and older pieces inspired by the season.
Happy writing!
The quaint New England village
in mid-October.
Antique shops, country stores.
White-steepled churches
set against the backdrop
of fall’s spectacular display
of crimson and gold foliage.
And the old New England home.
Her porch adorned with cornstalks and pumpkins.
Her flowerbeds full of yellow and rust-colored mums.
Arrogantly she stands.
She knows her admirers.
How they delight in her unassuming
beauty.
So simple.
Tasteful.
Smart.
She leaves her admirers to wonder
whether she is listed in the registry
of historic homes.
No one
not even she
acknowledges that her charms will fade
with the dropping of the leaves.
*
Be patient.
Wait a bit.
Four weeks perhaps.
Then visit again.
This time
go on in.
Meet her.
Push open the door that doesn’t quite want to give.
She’s not easy, you know.
Hear the creak of the plank floor as you step inside.
Smell the mothballs
and the scent of doorknobs
touched too many times
by so many hands
that the odor
that’s permeated their surfaces
can never be removed.
Smell the faint aroma
of dried out pot roasts
from dinners that stole away days.
Feel the lifeless still
of 4:00
on a Sunday afternoon
in November.
Sit in the chair by the window
and see the world
from that filmy view.
The gray sky.
The skeleton trees.
Now, turn your gaze back inside
and watch the dust
dance
in the late autumn sun
that streaks tauntingly through the glass.
And watch
as a single particle
settles itself atop one of the many knickknacks
that sits lazily
upon the mantel.
Hear the clock.
Each tick
reminding you
of how very long
a day can be.
In the sickening stillness
feel the unbearable loneliness.
Catch your breath.
Breathe in deeply.
Push the air past
the knot
in your throat.
As you sit, feel the house.
The weight
of her past.
So close, really.
What’s 200 years?
Certainly not enough time
for the departed
to resign themselves
to their fate.
It astonishes me how one season can be both profoundly beautiful and profoundly sad. When I was ten years old my family moved from a small industrial city to prison housing in a rural farming community. At the time, my father was the assistant warden of a maximum security prison, and high level staff and their families were expected to live on the grounds. Although we made the move in late August, for me, my seven years there are frozen in autumn. Our home, one of four, was set upon a hill. In back of our house-forest. In front of our house-fields. And if you looked past those fields, you could see a medium security prison looming on the horizon. It was an isolating and lonely existence, and, no matter how beautiful the landscape was, for a child used to a neighborhood and city kids, it was, well, sad. In my memory the sky was always gray, the trees always bare and the ground always covered in a blanket of the decomposing remains of what was once vibrant foliage. What strikes me most, however, is the perennial sound of honking geese. Prior to our move, I think it is possible that I had never before heard geese much less seen them flying overhead in V formation. But there, in that place, geese were omnipresent, honking, flying overhead, reminding me that I was a stranger trapped in a place that they were escaping from, if not forever, at least for the impending winter.
As I have grown older, I have learned to truly appreciate and, in many ways, love the fall. Fall is now a time of beautiful traditions-apple and pumpkin picking, hiking and collecting leaves while watching beams of sunlight shoot through tree branches, already majestic and adorned in gold. I look to my children to teach me lessons in optimism. They jump for joy into piles of dead leaves while happily awaiting the first snow to arrive and cover naked branches in crystal that shimmers in the light of the winter moon.
I guess it’s a matter of age and perspective. It is so easy to allow deep sorrow born from past experience to rob us of the happiness that comes from enjoying the beauty of the life we now lead. For me, I prefer to march on through dead leaves and enjoy hearing them crunch underfoot as I move on ahead.
It is a strange irony that, as the leaves prepare to fall from their branches and crumble to dust, the world seems to come alive. Gone, finally, is the lethargy of long hot days.
We are moved by autumn’s enchantments.
The cool air takes on a particular scent unique to the fall. It is both hearty and sweet, a mix of pine, apples, leaves trampled underfoot and the lingering fragrance of summer flowers.
Our spirits stir with the shift of the season. We are moved by a feeling of excitment and a sense of foreboding. Now is the time when our creativity reemerges from the its long summer slumber when frivolity and amusement seemed to overtake and suppress our artistic urges.
Now is the time to feel comfortably conflicted. We cling onto life in the face of impending death. As we are overwhelmed by the magestic beauty of orange and crimson leaves, we are cognizant of what is yet to come. As winter closes in upon us, we look to the heavens and we are gifted with a shot of the sun’s glorious rays filtering through golden leaves and capturing fall’s ineffable beauty.
And, as we journey onward, we beseech our muses for inspiration so that we may find peace in creating during those long, dark days of winter.
Quirk N Jive 