Autum Leaves

Today is the most Autumnal day I can remember, save for a one or two I vaguely recall from childhood. There’s a strong wind ripping most of the newly turned leaves off of their branches and scattering them about. Kids on campus are wearing scarves with light jackets and the cool air through the window carries sounds a little better than it does in the heat and humidity of summer. People are starting to walk around with their hands in their pockets. The weather reports say yesterday and the day before may be out last fair-weather days until next year. Soon I’ll have to get the motorcycle back to its winter storage location south of the city. Then the cold will really come, the pipes and radiators will rattle, and winter will roll down from the north with a certain metallic sort of ambivalence.

The phrase “Summer is almost over” has stuck in my mind ever since I saw it printed in a news paper ad and ripped it out, gluing it to my typewriter with red paint. I guess I’ve always enjoyed the easy metaphor present in the change of one season into another. And anyone can examine their existence and find a few things that mirror that change, for better or worse, and use them as a way to personify the seasons. To make something inanimate and inarticulate personal; it’s a weird characteristic of humanity. Anyway, as it appears that summer is now defiantly over, I feel like tipping my hat to the coming winter like a burglar, who knows he’s busted, might nod to the police who have come to take him away.

"Eyes on the road ahead, and bent to it again. Gone."