The Falling of the Leaves

Welcome to October.

I live in a tropical climate and the leaves do not change here, much to my sad dismay. I have lived here most of my life, yet I find myself a little surprised and disappointed each year when the leaves fail to alter in hue.

I know Autumn is nigh, because the paper towels at Publix have pumpkin and maple leaf patterns on them and the Halloween aisle at Target is rocking. But the seagulls scream and the wet-haired shoppers sport long t-shirts over their bathing suits and the fishermen dash in for bags of ice for their coolers. Another boring day in paradise.

But I know that the leaves are stirring and drifting in the breeze and beginning to change elsewhere, just like they have forever. I think of you walking in the leaves of your big back yard and I smile. And I think it is a good time for a little lament from my favorite, William Butler Yeats. Yes, the guy probably could have benefited from Prozac. But then we would not have been gifted with some of the loveliest poetry to come out of the 20th century, and that would have been sad too. Anyway, I miss you. Happy Fall.

The Falling of the Leaves
Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.
---William Butler Yeats