I just love autumn. I'm always just a little sad to see it end--but here, where I'm at, it has pretty much ended. So a last farewell.

                      The Old Orchard

Meet me in the old orchard
          and I'll tell you the secret.
Under the long abandoned branches--
                    their gnarled gray fingers
          spread in silent supplication.
Meet me deep inside the rows of stolid trunks
          pillars in the quiet ruin
                    that whisper and wheeze like old men
          and stand like sentinels--
Guardians of a dream devised
          on some aged night too hot for sleep
As hope arranged itself in rows
                    against the dark ceiling.
Someone's faith made woody flesh
Made tough enough to outlast
                                        the faith itself.

Come.
Meet me where
          all of the forgotten fruit still falls,
Where the wild turkeys
                    pick through the purples
          of the lupine and the teasel
And regard us with a prehistoric eye.
I will tell you the secret--
I will press it like a coin into your palm.
I will place it like a toffee on your tongue.
I will whisper it like a password in your ear.

And here--
          in this place made holy
                    with dream and sweat and neglect,
Where ghosts and angels tend the trees--
I will set the secret free.
Blow it like a dandelion wish before your face.
Scatter its seeds and set them floating in golden air.
          Delicate.  Feathered.  Promising.

And unsuspecting we'll breath them in
Where they will root in us like germs.