Experts at the Fall

Acorn hits bring me home from the horizon. September is here before I am there. What else can happen when one measures the truth in calendars and maps?

Apple blushes feeding on lilted light. A greater hunger wakens with ripening fruit – the kind that fully feels its peak just ahead of demise. Experts at the fall. We acknowledge all of this with eyes and mouths, yet the mind must have its way. Our birds will sing longer than we can wait. Our fruit will fold into the ground.

Sometimes that is what autumn means.

And yet . . .

Maple songs and knotty pine. Windswept hair tangles with woodsmoke and ashen leaves. Heathered scarves seducing the neck. October makes a play.

A clearing has been made, soon covered in the sodden rot of fall's debris. Winter's appetizer here and gone before any has a say.

But I shall gather this manna each day before it spoils, Beloved, in faith that you will place it on my tongue and in complete contrition whisper Body of Christ.