September to October

It settles down, this time, like a leaf

this season
looking upward to its home

just a crooked line now

and the decay has already begun.

This time of year

summer is a kind of lingering 

that can only be detected by temperature-

it's too warm today to say, autumn,

but I automatically get the nostalgia

for all those things:

    chopping wood with Dr. Allen

    disrupting leaf piles

    one on one tackle football with my brother

    cold nights with the windows open

    and colder mornings

    the simple act of smelling pumpkin pie.

But the heat and the decay and the lack of rain

gets jumbled in my head the way walking

through a fitness club scrambles up my mind

with three or four sources of music

and the massive amount of uncontrolled movement

(like so many fish flailing in air for water)

and the cling wrap of clothing double vacuum-sealed

and the false light

and the false plants

and the constant advertising

and the constant purchasing.

This fall the nostalgia doesn't cut it.