Melting Snow

Autumnal Equinox

Friday, September 22, 2017

"There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!"
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Autumnal Equinox

Autumn is a glorious time of year,
trees celebrate by dressing
in their pretties clothes,
birds wing their way
from north to south
or remain in nests
they redecorated in the spring
while singing their autumn songs.

I remember an Oklahoma autumn,
when the cottonwood leaves turned yellow,
and the wind blew them off the trees.

Grandpa always raked the leaves, placed them in a huge metal burial, and burned them. He never burned them on the ground where the autumn wind could spread the fire to the house or the rest of the yard. Sometimes, if the wind wasn't blowing too hard, Grandpa would let the leaves stay on the ground, so the my sibling and I could jump in them or run through them.

Autumnal harmony
wind singing through
the cottonwood tree.