a heaviness to the feel

Fall Equinox This Year

our chants of 

“Equi, Equi, Equinox,

Day and night, half and half”

are enthusiastic and the clouds do part

to let the Sun shadow the Sol Pole onto the carved sidewalk,

e kids enthusiastically celebrate

with our half-vanilla, half-chocolate cookies,

yet today doesn’t feel like the Equinox:

day time temperatures still like to embrace the 90’s,

night time temperatures still don’t dip deep into the 60’s,

persistent drought has morphed into persistent drizzle,

weather more a holding pattern

than Summer flipping to Fall, then back again,

contrast swallowed by sameness,

the Earth warms and the Jet Stream

doesn’t have northern cold as much

to tug with southern heat

and thereby vary the drive that drives the weather,

even with the dryness, most of the trees

seem to think it’s still high summer,

though the sour cherry has dropped most of its leaves,

some tulip poplar leaves transform and drop,

only a few other leaves seem to believe that change is coming,

though I regularly write to commemorate the solar milestones,

this time I write more out of habit and duty than of drive and inspiration,

there’s a heaviness to the air, to the feel of the day,

I write this in air-conditioning rather than outside,

where I would be immersed in what nature’s doing,

hummingbirds still love our feeder,

a few years ago they would, by now, be gone, back to the tropics,

our politics can’t deal with our selfishness:

the cliff awaits, will we follow each other over it?

by Henry H. Walker

September 22, ‘16