Equinox

Fundamental rules apply.
Morning comes, right on schedule,
Even as the earth slows down.
I have to prepare for school,

Even as my brain slows down
After half a century.
There's no hurry in the air,
No autumnal urgency,

Nonetheless autumn is here,
Season of monks and poets.
There's no snow in the mountains,
But trees begin to show red.

Crows congregate around them,
Accumulating murders
At the edges of the farms.
The shadows stretch out further,

Hungrier ghosts, longer arms,
And the mind dreams of decline,
Then wakes to realize, nonsense,
Times change, nothing changes time,

Life's young, life's old, same difference.
The world rolls one bright, round die,
And shifting in its balance
Shows the same face, every try.