Seasonal Sacrifices

The night air has turned cool.
In the fields, the flowers fade, die, dry
and become a new breed of beautiful,
monochromatic and stiff, frozen before their time.

You walk. The almost dead things beneath your feet crackle.
Stems break. The noise is crisp.
Not all things are dead, however.
The first frost is far off

and the sun, cold at dawn, quickly warms up.
Even now, you can feel its warmth on your face.
The sunlight brings life, even to the dead
heads of flowers and the broken parts of your soul.

It is no simple thing, too easily forgotten,
to simply stand in the sun and feel its life
seep deep into your skin.
You get lost too often in the loss of last season’s color,

so lost, you forget the color that remains,
the shades of the new season, its beauty
no less than the summer, only different,
choosing to mourn, losing what is,

a sacrifice
to what was.

About this poem

The picture was taken in the quarry across from where I live.

It has been cool at night for the last week or so, low fifties or upper forties. The same people who complained to weeks ago about the heat are now complaining about the cold. I happen to like the change of seasons.

I suck at looking back with longing. I always have. I am too much like a cat, lost in the day, in the moment. Some people think that’s a bad thing. Me, I think it’s a good thing.

From those things, a poem.

Be blessed. Celebrate something today.

Tom