Autumn. I can't get enough. For some reason, rather than feeling like things are over, or that we should be preparing for hibernation, I find I've more energy and feel clearer as summer droops away and fall arrives crisp and fresh.

I know it's not really autumnal, but R.T. Smith's Illumination brings me to fall, somehow. I think it's that this is the time when every green thing and flower seems brighter and flashier, wanting us to pay attention and be grateful -- green fervor, that's it. The impatients on my front stoop will not quit. I've never seen them so pink and so green, and the ivy... oh, the ivy. I felt last week that it might grab me up. Anyway, here's to fall, and here's the poem:


As if some monk
bored in the cold scriptorium 
had let his quill
wander from the morning Gospel,

two tendrils of wisteria
have scrolled their green fervor
into the weave of a wicker
deck chair

to whisper with each spiral,
every sweet leaf
and dew sparkle,
Brother, comewith us, come home.

Thanks, R.T. Smith.