The Season Changes

The Sumac In Autumn by Ginny Stiles

Hearing Acorns Fall

Fall begins to whisper in our ears.

The glint of sun on the water is different now

and the days shorter. The roadside verge turns slightly yellow.

The ferns go first. Black eyed Susans wave about still…

the latest of the blooming flowers.

The forest flowers are subtle and few with any color.

Only my window box and hanging baskets of impatiens offer respite

from total green. Lichens and fungus turn bright colors on the trees in fall,

and there will be mushrooms. 

Sometimes we visit the bogs and buy fresh picked cranberries.

The last visitors have bid farewell and autumn begins.

I remember the clear air, translucent yellow birches that turn the very air golden and then some bright maples that turn red…all against the pines.

 I have not heard the acorns yet.  They should start bouncing off the roof soon.

I wrote this "prose" to my friend Autumn and she "re-arranged" the words slightly to be more like poetry.  (She's very good at stuff like that!). 

And indeed, early fall has begun here at the cabin in the north woods of Wisconsin.  After a cool, wet, gray summer that never seemed to blossom.  

I have my fingers crossed now that the fall will have enormous beauty and that the woods will gift us with color, piney smokey smells, and still waters on the lake.  There will still be time for the loons and for writing and reading on the porch.  And for sketching and painting.  

Greg has found some acorns on the path to the lake since I wrote these words!