Shoulder Season

In the valleys and canyons,
The visitors diminished.
Bare branches on the high slopes
Scattered the last leaf-peepers.
Too early for winter sports—
Snow and hunters hardly showed.
Something started to finish.

There’s a loneliness to fall
That winter, lonelier, lacks—
Something empty and twisting
And resembling wet ashes.
Ends were confused for causes
Of our ends, of winds whistling
Through ashes, if ends listened.

Our merciless obsession
With stories, discrete units,
Origins and conclusions,
Meant we rarely considered
How fully in the middle
Of things we always must be,
Just as we always had been.

There were as many seasons,
Each distinctly similar,
Of bare air, clattering twigs,
And winds combing the grasses
Yet to happen and happen
Again as there’d ever been.
Those futures followed our scent.