What Soon Will Be Gone - Oct 16 2024

 

What Soon Will Be Gone

Oct 16 2024

Winter

is the measured tread

of heavy boots through powder snow;

a crisp crunch,

then a short flat squeak

like rusty bedsprings

protesting your weight.

How sound carries

through dense still air;

an arctic high,

so cold

spit freezes

before it hits the ground.

Spring

is the rush of water

in a sudden thaw,

a swollen creek, running-off,

gumboots

splashing through a puddle.

And when ice-blocked gutters

overflow,

the drip-drip-drip

on the ground below;

so insistent

you can’t help but listen

for the next infernal plop,

no matter how hard you try

to ignore it.

While summer

is the sound of bird song

and thunderstorms.

Of kids, let loose from school

who can’t sit still.

Of lawnmowers, growling noisily,

and sprinklers, circling lazily

with a rhythmic pffft-pffft-pffft

of cool spray.

But fall

is the pleasing crunch

of dry leaves underfoot;

that, left long enough

have turned brittle, shrunken, curled-up.

Kicking your way through the pile

like the giddy child

inside us all.

But mostly, it’s not so much sound

as sight.

The russets and golds

under clear blue skies,

the grass

before it browns

still green and luminous.

That distilled light

you get only in fall;

a flat cool light

that seems to imbue the world

with a bittersweet glow,

filling you

with unavoidable loss

and improbable hope.

So you take a mental snapshot,

attempting to capture

the precious beauty

of what soon will be gone.