An Abundance of Acorns

poetry (mine), this was published in Pennsylvania Bard's Southeast Poetry Review, November 2019

An Abundance of Acorns

There’s just enough of a chill that a jacket

is in order and my fingers feel a twinge

of the cold that will soon arrive. Winter

is coming. Winter is always coming,

but today, there’s this: the perfection

of an autumn morning walk, acorns

dropping from the sky, as if the gods

are teasing the squirrels, punch drunk,

slap happy as children

after a pinata’s been thwacked

and all the sweets cascade

to the ground. The squirrels

are punch drunk,

though maybe the gods are too,

and slap happy with their own

goodness and generosity.

Maybe they too love these luminous

and blue veined leaves, transformed

from green to orange, red, purple, gold, chestnut,

these fallen leaves, incandescent and glowing,

otherworldly and strange as dreams.

I am walking. It is morning.

The air smells of frost,

a chill reminds me: winter

is coming, prepare yourself.

But winter is always coming.

Today, there’s this: a morning walk,

these besotted gods,

this beauty blazing,

this abundance of acorns.