It took the leaves so long to turn that one of the chickens started laying. She’s a natural: makes her deposit every morning warm orb the color of my hand. It took the leaves so long to turn but then again I haven’t been here for October in a while. What do we geographically polyamorous drifters know about the arrival of cold autumn nights. One of the chickens started laying and the mums are dead not all the mums just the ones that got abandoned on our porch their dried-out corpses escaping their thin home depot shells and rolling across our lawn awaiting the dignity of the compost heap. I haven't been here in October in a while but mostly all I do is wipe the bar tables at 3pm cut lemons rearrange the seasonal signposts fake limbs, decorative cobwebs turn off the lights turn on the lightning effect open cocktail umbrellas to garage rock til early morning October, the medicaid helpline whose number I have memorized nice ladies who can’t verify my identity but they can transfer me to another line I count my refills check my bank account check the mail two notices about the open enrollment deadline any questions, please call October your oven’s been on for weeks now cookies every evening thin ones and fat ones white chocolate, coconut so many cookies we forget to eat toast three quarter loaf of moldy bread in the compost squirrels parade the back yard entire slices hanging from their greedy mouths, put flour on the grocery list again October maybe it’s true that the leaves took forever to turn colors dulled from heat, rainfall, uneven ambient apocalypse. But look at this sugar maple outside our front window burning. Can you really hold a thought in your mind with that color filling your eyes? Can you maintain a critical distance assess this red against theoretical ones color charts, years past can anything be true except exactly what is true now this particular fire in the five o'clock sun? (The other night I dreamed that everyone’s hair turns red when they get old. No grays, just a prolonged, bright burst, then bald. The metaphor doesn't interest me – life as a single turn around the seasons – blah blah, nothing new there. But the imagery is pleasing: AARP ads full of gingers, the audience at college graduations a sea of proud parents all flaming like Pippi Longstocking. A small kindness to be reminded that I am capable of such pointless and fanciful invention, during a season when the soil of my mind hasn’t been fecund, easy.) October, 844 464 3774, two nightmare fuels and a nosferatu's rise, hold the orgeat press one to preheat the oven, two for mums three to order another round it's too late for mums that's what the internet says it's too late for mums but maybe the ladies will keep laying they sometimes do, even after first frost press star if you can't remember why you were calling in the first place I said sugar maple, before but I don't know for sure what kind of maple it is. I'd have to check Rory's book. All the neighborhood trees are there he's been gathering them this season notes in pen like a rolodex of new acquaintances name, number, bark, stem, berry leaf samples under packing tape. And what if that were writing: taking a blank notebook and filling it with leaves. This season is making me simple like that take some scrap of the day put it under tape don’t worry what it’s amounting to. October's signature lesson about beauty that strips and strips and strips til bare. October you're leaving and a few trees are still holding green. We know the feeling greedy cells soaking up last light before 5pm darkness comes calling. Come back. before it's too late. Come back with all your slow golden all your ache, all your falling towards completion. Come back when we've survived another year.
p.s. For anyone who missed it, or is new here, this piece is an homage to my favorite autumnal poem, October in Massachusetts, which you can hear me reading last month’s post. The original is by Paul Monette.
My favorite lines:
“take some scrap of the day
put it under tape
don’t worry what it’s amounting to.”
It also prompted me to go back and listen to the poem you read (which I haven’t heard before). Thank you for sharing both, yours and his. 🧡