Saturday, December 4, 2010

Layered Light at Twilight

Fall by Edward Hirsch

Fall, falling, fallen.
That's the way the season

Changes its tense in the long-haired maples

That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves

Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then

Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager

And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever

Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud

Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything

Changes and moves in the split second between summer's

Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,

Another moment arriving on the next platform. It

Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away

From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,

Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving

Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,

Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.

And every year there is a brief, startling moment

When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless

Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:

It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;

It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

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