Days are Getting Shorter
Leaves crackle underfoot,
as their friends
gently float to the ground
from the heights above
to join them among
our skipping feet.
The morning is sweater weather chill,
and we go to the farmer’s market
buying newly harvested ginger,
huge yellow-green Mutzu apples,
and a cauliflower
bigger than your head.
There are pumpkins
with arabesque stems,
and piles of papery garlic,
purplish crimson onions
with their stalks
still attached,
and long fat fingers
of rosy, fresh shallots.
The last dahlias are picked,
while the coleus remains vivid,
and the quirky zinnia stems
are no longer ramrod straight.
They are still vibrantly happy enough,
but now wiggle their way skyward,
and sport mottled leaves,
going leathery, rustling, and dry,
easing into their future fading.
Carpets of acorns
are underfoot,
bumpily uncomfortable
to walk upon, pine cones
are strewn about haphazardly,
the wooly-bear caterpillars
are curiously almost
a solid color this year,
and the chestnuts
have fallen off the trees,
smooth and pristine
inside their spiky armor.
We peel off layers
in the afternoon.
I bask on the front porch
like a reptile in the sun,
collecting vitamins
like osmosis,
as we savor the scent
of aromatic earth,
the freshly cut grass,
drying herbs,
the white hydrangea
that are blushing
a brazen pomegranate tinge,
and the liatris, which is
briskly going to seed
all too indiscriminately.
I hum a hymn
to the harmony
of the universe,
as I prepare our
season’s last
corn-on-the-cob.
The days are starting to shorten.
Let’s go for a walk before the rain.
Let’s relish this turning inward,
this harvest time of hope,
by being outside enough to marvel
at all of nature’s rhythms.
by Polly Castor
10/10/26
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