September 22: Richard Wilbur, "The Beautiful Changes," Fall Equinox

The Beautiful Changes

by:  Richard Wilbur

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides   

The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns

Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you   

Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed   

By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;   

As a mantis, arranged

On a green leaf, grows

Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves   

Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says   

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes   

In such kind ways,   

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose   

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

____________________

It is the first official day of autumn.  September 22.

Went to Meijer this morning and stood by the crates of pumpkins.  It really feels like autumn.  The air is cooler, and the trees are finally beginning to change from green to mustard and ketchup.  I hate to say it, but I think the dog days of summer have departed with the flock of geese I saw honking its way south.

Autumn used to be my favorite season.  The colors.  Ghost stories.  Scary movies.  Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Now, it simply represents the time between mowing the lawn and shoveling snow.  I think I'm officially old.

However, Saint Marty bought a bag of candy corn to celebrate the fall equinox.