a progress report on Fall

Fall Equinox 18

the warm humid air of late summer

doesn’t care that the Sun is crossing the Equator,

too much energy is held in the ocean these days,

and then released into the air that sits on us,

I dream of October’s cool nights, bright blue days,

and air dry enough to swallow some of my sweat,

about a third of the maple trees seem tired of waiting

and just drift colorless to the ground,

about a tenth of the leaves of the pink dogwood

are readying themselves,

tempting the eye with harbingers 

of the red glory that will come,

our grapes have finished their best production year in decades,

though the cedar arbor will need a lot of fixing,

tomatoes are almost gone,



 beans finishing,

Native American pumpkin feel the frost coming

and are bountiful below their mass of leaves,

okra still produce though the recent remnants of Hurricane Florence

have winded them part over,





a few gourds are getting themselves ready,

school is in full swing,

and I am touched by how many kids

are breaking through toward their power,

Fall Equinox feels like it should be of balance,

but the world needs to stumble

before skies can clear into clarity.

by Henry H. Walker
September 23, ‘18