Fall Back

soft grass
drowning in pale light
remnants of a fierce glowing
beyond the kissable gloom

I miss the color change of a Midwestern autumn, though you can still tell it’s fall by the light, which takes on a nostalgic quality, puts on wistful hues. The clouds herringbone, like cotton candy dirgibles flocking for the winter journey south. Then comes the rain. I don’t miss being in the snow, though I miss the muffled sound and downy softness of a fresh snowfall. While I don’t care for the rain, I take it gladly over snow. If the rain were accompanied by a large thunderclap and a dance of jagged white light rising from the earth to the clouds, I might appreciate it or at least respect it. But the rain here, once it starts, never stops. It is cold and clammy, making one's clothes codependent as they cling for dear life. I tread water as it flows into my boots. But all that is yet to come. Now’s the time for lazy infielding, taking in whatever last days of regal rays existing. Fall finds me fondling trees and grass in the park and looking skyward always….