It doesn't want to be Fall.
Not one bit of the horizon
has even a tinge of red or yellow.
The sickly sycamores, admittedly,
have gone into their crisping act,
and there's a kind of wilted edge
to random leaves at arm's reach.
Yet pole-melt and hurricane,
bird and bug absence foretell
that something awful
is out there —
the snow will come unannounced
before the pumpkin harvest.
I will awaken to its glare
that doubles the sun's intensity
on kitchen wall, draw up
the bedroom shade to see its full
white blanket wink in the parking lot,
where an acquisitive wind
will make drifts of it.
There are no clear edges any more.
No respect for solstice, equinox.
Some god of caloric anger rips skeins
off icebergs and denudes Greenlandia.
Summer goes south to pout
and meditate, while here up north,
instead of an apple- and pie-harvest,
we will shudder in all enveloping Siberia.
But nature has its seductions.
When all seems at its worst, the crocuses
line up with little flags, freezing
their delicate asses off, and you,
despite all your blizzards,
will fall for it.
With drops and heaves
and thunderings, you
will give us spring.
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