I remember that I loved the fall color change,
but I don’t remember what it looked like.
The only ones I know now are from movies, TV, photos, paintings.
But it’s not the same.
It was an emotional response then, as strong
as it is now forty years later, the idea of it stunning me in memory.
There’s something about standing in the middle of a forest of trees,
no longer green,
towers of red, orange, and yellow flame,
beacons of autumn’s turning to the world,
lighthouses warning of winter’s coming,
on the backsweep, reminding us summer’s gone,
and all the leaves are dying,
but what a way to go out,
bodies bared in a burst of breathtaking fire.
Lanning Lee 