The atmosphere is crisp and bites one’s ear like a puppy.

The trees ecstatically bleed, and they scream out to the world like a toddler,

flaunting their new costume, begging bystanders for a comment and a glance.

My mom wets her thumb and flips the page to welcome the season of change, of new arrivals,

although everything about it remains a familiar feeling.

Many dread the last balmy breath of summer and the onset of the grim interlude between the yearly peaks of climate.

Where is the bugle call? The pomp and circumstance? 

Where are the horsemen of opalescent autumn, waving the brilliant banner of catharsis?

I’ll make a day of trying to find them, blend into the scene and wrap myself in wheaten wool, 

warble with the birds, eat an apple at the orchard.

Lie in the dirt, buy a scarf I’ll never wear, go to bed early.

The scrim hangs all around like an abandoned theater’s forgotten third act, 

hopelessly paralyzed, waiting for the cast to bow and the curtain to finally drop.

But even when the maple leaves spread a dull veil over the ground

and when every step you take sounds like a gunshot,

you can at least lament, into this crisp atmosphere,

to the callow trees and your sweater’s collar,

to the brown spot on the apple,

Where have all the flowers gone?