The Garden of the Seasons: Dispatches From Octoberland

Leaves pile up around the chairs on the veranda,

like rain filling a ship, a vessel.

Our lives are a vessel filling up with leaves, 

and light, and shadow.

In the distance is noise, and mountains,

the crows call in, with a regularity of their own choosing.

October in the happy land of small mountains,

domesticated to appearances, reachable by amateurs.

And, for a while each day, the sun shines like a revelation

What have we done to deserve this?

The lady gardener wears a wide Asian farmer's hat.

Even though at home I putter in similar fashion,

here the earth entire is a garden

as if the planet were continually at play.

The hills bloom yellowing configurations.

Leaves spotted brown from the endless rain, water stained,

as if mapping the spread of some looming disaster,

look rusty up close.

But no one is unhappy here. 

It’s simply not allowed.

And nobody would notice if you were.

The silence of the golden world fills with distant geese,

internal prompts of the changes, last turns of the wheel

that eventually point to the west...

The evening land, in which

we find, as always,

green mountains, golden sands

2. Hermit on the Pond

I can't think who else would live here.

Yet I am envious.

The stylish pointy roof

like a chimney cap, or

a man hoeing in a field.

Instead of a lawn, a world of reflections

on which float fragments

of your neighbors.

When they prepare for the cold

by turning colors

(for your delight)

and then, the philosophic gesture, shedding their extremities,

what will you shed when those trees

give up color and withdraw into themselves

waiting for a propitious moment to do it all again?

Will you wait as well?

How unnecessary that

the owner's sign says, "Danger."

"Do Not Enter Herein."

 3.Orange Spot

If this place has a name,

and most of them do,

I do not recall it.

The ground goes up and down.

The stones shiny in the final daylight hour

and the leaves fall on the trail

like the colored currency of a more festively imaginative realm.

We turn back before darkness turns the trail

into more earth, more stones, more solemn stillness,

ancient echoes of a world before us.

Only the sudden amber light finds its way,

a silence-seeking searchlight.  

through this paradise of silence

and three pairs of scurrying feet.

4. Aspinwall Hotel

Only the portrait remains of the grand hotel

situated up high on a once-cleared site

in a once-desired location

for those leaving urban addresses for fresh air, rural outlooks, idle days.

People change, extending their sense of place

with the help of distance-conquering machines.

The trees vote for change as well

and summon their ally, fire,

to clear the ground once more

for a new way of life.