Mid-Autumn
We recite the reminder, Fall Back,
and with daylight’s abbreviation,
grow retrospective, it seems, overnight.
Orchards blossomed, leafed out, and fruited.
That sort of thing. We recognize now
how thoughtlessly we passed it all by,
on our way to Here Before-You-Know-It,
Can-You-Believe-It, and so on.
From November’s vantage now,
summer feels somehow like childhood,
time little noticed before it vanished,
before the incursions of clocks.
We look southeastward at the Beaver Moon,
hung on the ridge as if hinged.
Things celestial, earthly, what have you–
everything seems hinged.
We’re on some verge. If we’re lucky,
we have warm shelter. There, indoors,
we animate ourselves with stories
about seasons past, which, as we listen,
we can’t be sure ever happened.
Sydney Lea is a Pulitzer finalist in poetry, founder of New England Review, Vermont Poet Laureate (2011-15), and recipient of his state’s highest artistic distinction, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He has published two novels (most recently Now Look, 2024), seven volumes of personal essays (most recently, Such Dancing as We Can, 2024), a hybrid mock epic with former Vermont Cartoonist Laureate James Kochalka called Wormboy (2020), and sixteen poetry collections (most recently What Shines 2023). His new and selected poems, Dancing in the Dark, is due in early 2027.