GOODBYE TO THE FLOWERS

I've lived in nearly every part of this country at one time or another but, to me, it's only in New England that the "poetry of seasonal change" feels like more than a cliche. Most times, in most places, a changing season is treated as just one more dreary pretext for one more dreary sale down at some dreary suburban mall. Don't you hate that?

But here in Massachusetts, spring and summer really do sing the body electric. Winter really does look and feel like a whited sepulcher. And in between floats autumn, the richest season by far, when Life and Death wrestle over the tiny souls of a billion fiery leaves.

The fall announces itself with a chill that whips into your eyes, your mouth, your throat and makes you feel everything a little more deeply: The scent of burnt leaves; the flavor of apple cider and cinnamon donuts; and the dull pain in your (my) still-healing heart.

Of course, there's a lot that's unsettling about a New England autumn. It makes me conscious of how little time I have here on earth, and how much I've got to lose. It reminds me that my wonderful freedom to feel and to write as I please is a terribly fragile privilege - as fragile as the blooms that I often stop to photograph with my little Nikon Coolpix. Those blooms are beginning to shrivel-up and flutter away now and I wonder what and who I will be when they return - and whether I'll be here to see them. Today, as I was snapping my camera at a lilly, I found myself humming an old song by the late John Hartford called . . .

I'M GOING TO WORK IN TALL BUILDINGS

someday, my baby, when i am a man
and others have taught me the best that they can
they'll cut off my hair and sell me a suit
and send me to work in tall buildings

so it's
goodbye to the sunshine
goodbye to the dew
goodbye to the flowers
and goodbye to you

i'm off to the subway
i must not be late,

i'm going to work in tall buildings

now, when i'm retired, my life is my own

i've made all the payments, it's time to go home

and wonder what happened, betwixt and between . . .

when i went to work in tall buildings

So my autumn wish for you, my loved ones (and for everybody else on earth, too) is, may you never have to work in tall buildings. Unless, of course, you like that sort of thing.

-cc-