in the between

 Fall Equinox '25

for the past few days the poplar trees

have been dropping brown leaves, sometimes in flurries, 

as if doing dry runs for next month,

a few maple and oak go along with the early dropping,

the weather has been dry, a few light showers,

from the Gatlinburg Bypass clouds mostly whiten the blue above,

so the first light unveils a mackerel sky,

with white puffs almost like fish scales,

the great mountain before us runs east-west,

so the line of its bulk point straight at summer's last rising sun,

the angle wrong for any delineation of slope from the increasing light,

grey mist settles on the valley and soft hazes the city below us,

my eyes scan up the vertical mile that this mountain rises

to where a dark grey coverlet hangs around its upper peaks,

as the sun climbs onto the sky

its grey wants to rose and settles on expanding

as iof to swallow the high slopes,

back in the valley four wild turkey graze on bits of chestnut

left where the bears have feasted,

this day is lovely and calm,

and we get a lot of cooking done, chores done,

lans furthered for what needs to be done

to fix a swing and a bench,

I want to notice this change of season,

to chronicle what this day is like here in my mountains,

the day and the night are equal today,

as if, for a moment, all is in balance,

despite the manic chaos emanating from Washington,

after today dark increasingly ascends and changes the season,

the growing season is ending,

and the trees will seem to celebrate the harvest

as their underlying color will shine forth for a time

the soft roundedness of the forest will drop away

and reveal the sharp lines of trunk and limb beneath,

how can we appreciate spring flowers

without the starkness of their absence?

the sun has crossed the sky

and is sinking into the west,

the light is soft and diffuse, 

the sky grey,

as befits the Equinox 

the day softly slips away.

by Henry H. Walker

September 22, ‘25