The Season of the Turning Trees

Enter where October has loosened the leaves from the mountain,
where the maple reddens in the high wind
and the gold of the forest runs downward through the hills,
where summer, having spent all its green,
leaves the trees burning in its wake.

Here the season gathers its colors.

Red over the ridges,
gold beneath the slopes,
brown earth showing through the places
where the leaves have already gone to ground.

The wind lifts them in sudden multitudes.
They whirl above the grass,
cross the open hills,
and scatter into the hollers
where the coming cold has begun to gather.

Farther in, the forest grows immense.

The trees rise dark against a sky
washed thin by the shortening day,
their highest leaves catching fire
where the sun reaches them,
while beneath their crowns
the fallen colors deepen toward evening.

There is no summer here.

Only its remains burning upon the hills,
its green changed into scarlet,
its warmth surrendered to the wind,
its living leaves becoming earth.

Yet the mountains do not mourn.

They carry October upon their sides,
red as a wound beneath the sun,
gold as flame among the trees,
and beyond them the farther ridges
withdraw into the blue coming of night.

Stand there when the light begins to fail.

See the last leaves trembling against the sky.
See the color leave the hills
until the forest becomes one vast shadow
beneath the first stars.

Then you will know the country you have entered.

A place opening beneath your feet,
a season with no boundary
beyond the hills and falling leaves,
where every leaf has its hour,
every hill its changing fire,
and the whole green world
must pass through October
before it can become anything else.