Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander on the boulevards, up and down,

restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Stephen Mitchell.
Illustration by 3amfromkyoto

Posting this poem whenever I first start to feel the onset of autumn has become a sort of tradition for me. The leaves here are turning; the light has changed. Pumpkins are shedding their umbilical vines. School has started again.

I’m not looking forward to the greyness and the dark of the Pacific winter; but autumn offers some fine consolations. It’s a magnificent last meal.  I always thought that Rilke (and Mitchell) did a fine job a catching that thin, golden membrane between their fingers.