Changing Season

Changing Season

Apples litter the side yard
and the nearby street
scenting the neighborhood when
Pressed under the wheels of
passing cars.

Trees on the nearby hillside
lose their deep green,
fading at first,
then brightening to gold
under heavy bellied rain clouds

The nights lengthen,
And under clear stars touched with frost
I bring plants in from the porch
to clutter the hallway.

And in the late dawn,
the furnace makes its
first, rumbling entry,
Filling the house with the faint scent
of fuel, hot metal
and disturbed mold and must,

The cat chases mice
who know what is coming
and take risks
Seeking perilous shelter
from the oncoming cold.
migrating indoors,

Even as thin ragged Vees of geese
cry and fly
following the river.
east and south.
in their greater migration.

It always used to feel too early,
The dying of green,
The coming of cold.
The early stars
and late sunrises. 
And the great and small migrations.

I don't take the changes
as I used to though.

When the hills are bare,
but for the dark spruce
and lingering ragged bits of gold
and rust,
I find I love the resting,
fallow time,

I have license to slow down,
to dream,
sit still with the cat,
or a book or poem,

To walk slowly under dripping trees,
Taking the time to see
the colors
that once only looked brown,
To name the lavenders, reds, rusts, sage and deep greens,
and know
How much I have missed
in my
hasty
grumpy,
impatience with,
subtlety and change.