Midwest Autumn

Susan Swartwout

Was it yesterday or centuries before

that the once spring-green salvia

drifted to sleep, dreaming itself

into ochres and tangerine?

Hummingbirds reappear at the feeder,

graceful in concession of their favorite

summer nectar-cups to the seed-eating

chickadees and purple finches. My dog naps

more, raises his nose into the gusts of wind

to read reports of coming weather. Radar-

ears up, he listens for the distant growls

of thunder, those crashing tap-tos that

gale-sweep Missouri’s lowlands.

The garden flattens into its harvest

and walnuts spread their bounty to rake.

A yodel-bark of geese wavers somewhere

beyond the lowered gray clouds

of a rainy season, harmonizing with

notes of cold-turning, dry-falling,

patter-dropping. Revealed, the geese shout

their faith to one another as they etch

feathered sojourns in sky. Their subtle symphony

wraps a shawl of elation woven with melancholy

around my shoulders once again.

Something is ending

                                 Something else begins