When I lived up North, the end of September meant falling leaves, starting the furnace, and dragging
out the heavy clothes.
It also meant gloom. Somewhere in my history, autumn married sadness, and they remain inseparable. I
have no idea why, and I have been singularly ineffective in my efforts to manage this damnable
cerebral configuration. Invariably, I'm left to fend for myself with a resulting dysphoria that so
thoroughly colors my perception and precludes realistic enjoyment.
"Pain--has an element of blank--
It cannot recollect
When it began--or if there were
A time when it was not--
It has no future--but itself--
It's infinite contain
It's past--enlightened to perceive
New periods--of pain."
Now that I am south of the border, I feel safe. In this, my first Floridian Fall, the angst of Autumn
is mercifully abstract and, although I can well recall the fact of my former discontent, I am
shielded from the associated melancholy by enveloping warmth and sunlight.
Defenses relaxed, Emily's poems on autumn are no threat.
"A solemn thing within the Soul
To feel itself get ripe--
And golden hung--while further up--
The maker's ladders stop--
And in the orchard far below--
You hear a being--drop--
A wonderful--to feel the sun
Still toiling at the cheek
You thought was finished--
Cool of eye, and critical of work--
He shifts the stem--a little--
To give your core--a look--
But solemnest--to know
Your chance in harvest moves
A little nearer--Every sun
The single--to some lives."