Jack Black - December 1, 2022
Image by - Alana Halsted
In autumn nights and mornings, I feel
An odd little yearn for that nip in the air
A sniffle in the nose with a scarf 'round my neck
And a gentle gray film across the sky
A downtown walk with my hands in my wool pockets
A warm bowl of soup from a restaurant I've never been
In a city I've never seen
But one that I’ve so clearly dreamed
Perhaps I have some strange allure to death
For I feel so tightly drawn to those corpses of leaves
They of green, born anew
Into scarlet elders of a season passed
Soon laid to rest on the homely ground
Each brutal crunch of their stiffened self
A remembrance of their graceful fall
And maybe too, an odd comfort of the cold
For I can feel no warmer solace than in those buried wintry nights
Land of green, now obscured
In the white blanket of a season coming
Making itself at home on the welcoming ground
Each soft crunch of its cotton skin
A greeting to the shedding sky
As the sun shines bright, tearing that hopeful gray film
In the midst of my wishes of eternal autumn nights
A deep disappointment sinks my soul
The permanence promised to me,
By those scarlet elders and that thick white blanket
And the crunch of the aging year below my feet,
Is just an illusion.