For Everything There is a Season

It is my cheek that feels it first,

An unlikely, formless harbinger,

That spans the gap from nose to ear and eye to mouth,

Like the backcloth on a stage of stars.

Except, it is my cheek that makes the first report,

While the rest are too much absorbed in yesterday’s work

Of tie-your-shoes’ and hurry-ups and quick-go-back-in-and-get-its.

Suddenly, abruptly, turning on the threshold for goodbye

Tilting my cheek to the sky,

I feel the pricking chill of change.

And though I have witnessed the dying back,

Smelled the decay set in under foot,

That decisive bite of cold upon my cheek arrests me,

Startles me out of expecting the Fall would be indefinite,

And sets both grief and thrill to crystalize in my veins.

In the pause, my tongue tastes the sparser air

And notes the absence of life. Darling, get your coat.

My nose, corroborating, threatens to run.

It is clean, it tells me, without the fuss of flowers.

My ear concurs, it is louder now,

Traffic passing on the street, men taking out the rubbish, doors slamming,

Without the cushiony foliage of summer.

I lift my eyes to steely blue,

A cloudless sky

To see at last the frost has hardened while I slept,

And put my hand to where it kissed my cheek.