fall comes in with wet footprints

 

Autumnal Equinox, ‘21

this year the Autumnal Equinox 

was not of the heavens,

it was not of clarity of expression

as to the equal hours of light and darkness,

instead rain settled over us

the day and night merged 

with each other within shades of gray,

a fulling Moon lightened the night,

and the clouding of gray continued,

we have had weeks of highs in the 90s

and high enough humidity to scare sweat from evaporating,

after the Equinox, temperatures changed:

highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s,

the air no longer smudging lines

but crisping the view of tree and self,

in the garden Kentucky Wonder pole beans,

 pie pumpkins, and gourds are of fruition,

the last potatoes just dug today,

only a few tomatoes still release themselves,

most stalks are ready to be pulled,

the basil gave up the ghost weeks ago,

as did the precious muscadine,

school feels more of spring and beginnings than of fall and endings,

I feel in my classes that the students are perennials,

and I celebrate as they harvest product after product

that their efforts in September have pulled into being,

efforts that have a traceable past

from family, from preschool, from their first grades,

from how they are themselves,

from how they have been seen and appreciated, and helped

by parent, by caregiver, by teacher,

each apple that reveals itself 

deserves to be celebrated for its current wholeness

and also for the power of the journey

for which this fruit is but a step on a continuing path.

by Henry H. Walker

September 25, ‘21