Soul-Knowing

One day, in September, or sometimes August

Or sometimes, bewilderingly, March,

You will step outside one morning

And find yourself in October.

The trick will be untraceable,

Though entirely unmistakeable.

“Is it here,” you will ask, “in the bite of the air on my cheek?”

But is it not often cool, first thing in the morning?

“Is it here then, in the threat of rain or the angle of the sun?”

But are there not clouds in January too?

Does the sun not pass through ten degrees every day in June?

“Here then, in the rustle of leaves?

“Or again here, in the smell of the air?”

What smell, what rustle, what is so new here

That October has shivered through your soul?

You will scratch your head and walk out into September

Or August, or March,

But your skin will know how cold can be just enough

To make the blood hum and dance

Like the wild witchy women.

Your eyes will know how light that lingers low on the horizon

Loses its cool, but keeps its golden hue

To set the fashion for the trees.

Your nose knows the sombre weight of rain,

And the clean smell of dying,

When dying is groundwork for rising life.

And your ears will know the difference

Between the wind rustling leaves in their prideful heights

And playing with their corpses in the road.

And even if your skin, and your eyes, and your nose and your ears

Are, in concert, momentarily convinced,

You will walk out into September still,

Because your soul knows how the dark seeps out of the night

To steal whatever of life is left unprotected,

And how only in October, is it time to light the candle.