First of October today, my wife says,
We should be doing more than this;
My father, for instance, taking his camera for a walk,
His wife, mother and life-source of us all, surveying her garden,
I am here, I said, the hand still on my head,
Cats prowling outside, availing themselves of the longer nights;
My wife picks up the rake.
If only it were as simple as that.
surveying her garden, the last blooms,
October leaves falling around us,
fallen around us, like snow.
Picks up a rake, puts it down--the futility of it all,
yesterday's pile getting smaller already again,
swirling in the wind.
consider the fire, the spectacle, the wind.
coming home with the captured colours,
the splendour of the leaves against the late sky,
smells of forests and fields, and I thinking,
there should be more to this than falling,
more to summer.
always counting the heads, making sure we were all in place,
even as she was getting smaller and smaller,
frail in the October wind;
even as we stood around the grave.
counting and reassuring. The leaves had all fallen,
the sun winding down from the equinox to the solstice,
the longest and darkest of nights,
and I thinking, there should be more, more;
and the grave silent, falling away into the darkness.
our cats prowing inside, perturbed.
There's work to be done, she says, restoring order to her domain.