It’s hardly a mark of distinction, I know,
That I always grow moody when fall arrives.
Like many, I find autumn a complex wine –
Fruit forward thanks to summer’s solar surplus,
But with notes of melancholy piercing the finish.
As a child, I was inspired by October’s rainbow;
As a teen, by its seditious rebuke of conformity.
If its low altitude fireworks show
Foretold the coming dark and cold,
It also softened the blow.
I won’t deny my Yankee neighbors and I
Take unearned pride in our canopy’s acclaim.
And if we complain about the annual gawkers
That our deciduous celebrities attract,
We have no quarrel with their billfolds.
But today, branches bare and groupies gone,
It occurs to me that once on the ground,
Fall’s Crayola colors turn the same brown
As buds blown free from an April tree,
And the sylvan bunting shorn by a summer storm.
True, my understory brethren and I
Longed for the sunlight and attention
Lavished upon the forest’s crown jewels.
Yet here we all are, commingled in the dirt.
So, despite the latter’s fleeting fame,
I guess that leaves us all the same.
