Autumn 2020
The sorrow of autumn is the slow good-bye of the garden that stands so long in the evening—
a brown poppy head, the stalk of a lily, and still cannot go.
It is the empty feet of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold is folded in feathers with its head in a bag.
The third sorrow is the slow good-bye of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers the minutes of evening,
the golden and holy ground of the picture.
The pond gone black, ruined, and sunken the city of water—
the beetle's palace, the catacombs of the dragonfly.
The fifth sorrow is the slow good-bye of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it's gone. It has only left litter—firewood, tent poles.
Autumn is the slow good-bye of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window as the year packs up like a tatty fairground that came for the children.
paraphrased from a poem by Ted Hughes
This set of photos taken in Taos county, New Mexico - October 2020
