Autumnal Equinox 2009

September 22, 2009 marked another autumnal equinox and the beginning of fall. We in California live in the Golden State which may be a bit tarnished today but still a land of dreams and entrepreneurs popping up like crabgrass on a lawn, despite the best efforts of our bureaucratic and political gardeners to regulate them into oblivion. We may be golden but in the fall we are like black and white with only shades of grey compared to New England's fall canvass of colors of its deciduous tress. Some say like a tree a man in the fall of his life cannot hide his true colors. Hope you enjoy the poem. If you want to receive preview pages of North to Alaska--Islands of Stability in Seas of Change, email me at mridley@octechlaw.com
Autumnal Equinox
Only in the autumn do the true colors emerge
Of reds, yellows, oranges in hues to splurge
Pixels of changing life in a sudden unrelenting surge
The bland uniforms of green to quickly purge
A canvas without brush to suddenly appear
With the global warming maybe later in the year,
Like a masterpiece reflecting into an artist’s inner mirror
New hues created without hesitation or fear.
One could tarry and never rush,
Colors vibrant, colors so very lush
Here up close or in the distance the miracles to brush
Another short term lease, the canvas soon the carpet plush
Almost by baton unseen, the colors begin to fade,
Slowly like drops of rain begin to cascade,
Confetti of colors in a welcome parade,
A colder sun through what was leafy shade,
Stark branches now only remain
Colors gone on forest floors now lain,
Warmth of summer quickly wanes
Harvests of fields of grain.
Fall is here and may be too in the cycle of a man’s trek
With winter snows soon to fall to summer dreams now check,
A moment to pause and to look back on summer acts now suspect
No longer able to hide his true colors, the past chose to select.
© September 22, 2009
Michael P. Ridley