"When the acorns line the walkways/Then winter can't be far..."

Cheryl Wheeler, "When Fall comes to New England."


Although the sweater weather is SO not here (today's high should be 78 degrees Fahrenheit), the leaves are falling off the trees, which brings to mind that more famous Gerard Manley Hopkins poem:

31. Spring and Fall

to a young child

Márgaret, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older	5
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:	10
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.	15

from Bartleby's, of course.

And another "fall" thought. Got this from Heidi--a spoof piece on Halloween that had me laughing from Kamp Krusty.