autumn sunset

form: poem
completed: 20 october 2006
notes: on the train from carbondale to chicago

Sunsets in Autumn are the only perfect time,
fitting each other like finger and glove:
amber light over russets and grains,
the perfect palette of nature.
While one can love sweet summer nights,
the warmth and quiet of the darkened sky,
their velvet colour can’t hope to match August’s sun.
Spring mornings are rich and vibrant,
full of promise and hope,
but only Autumn sunsets are perfect in line,
texture, tint, time.
The briefest, sweetest, breathtaking pause
before we are enthralled in night.
And while you are close and warm and strong,
like the cemetery behind our fields
where we hid those evenings of June,
you are not my Autumn sunset.
That season has passed away,
and we are in winter again.