Free Verse
Traveling to October to Say Goodbye
October is a high mountain where the aspens turn yellow across the Colorado slopes, and the Continental Divide cuts the sky into two countries. You enter above the last pines, where the earth opens wide and the peaks carry their first snow. Summer has gone down the mountain. Winter has begun its claim. At this elevation, the year has little left to give. A few weeks of color remain before the white comes down and takes possession of everything. You climb higher, past the final stand of aspens, until the land becomes open ground and the peaks surround you. October has no center. Every direction leads uphill. Each summit holds a different amount of the coming winter. You stand among the aspens with the whole of October around you, knowing the yellow will vanish and the snow will cover the heights. You could stay here until the season closes over you, until the yellow disappears and the mountain belongs to snow. Instead, you turn back toward the lower slopes, carrying the brief country with you, the one you entered when summer was almost gone. By the time you reach the valley, the highest peaks have vanished into the approaching storm. You look up at the place where you stood that morning. The mountain has begun to erase the way back. I descend from October as the first snow crosses the peaks. The yellow country falls away with every step toward the valley, and winter takes the heights I have left behind. By the time I reach lower ground, the mountain has changed. I carry its last bright days into a world already turning cold, knowing I have left a place I cannot enter again until another year opens its door.
By Nolan Reed18 days ago in Poets
