Reflection

Frouzins – November 2017

Days are shorter,

summer’s voice is softer.

Green chlorophylls return

to their brown towns of branch, cities of trunk,

leaving the pigments of red and gold

to occupy their now vacated

summer holiday accommodations.

I circumnavigate the lake

wishing for myself its calm acceptance –

unruffled surface waters –

in contrast to my many nightmares –

of destiny, of school examinations,

of conflicted family of origin,

of the distant cosmos.

Autumn: medium of quiet messages,

but the dark mantras of winter

overpower its liturgy.

True, pines keep their needles but our tragedy,

our shame – we of the genus deciduous –

is we shed our leaves, hibernate,

then one morning we do not wake.