A Spell of Falling Leaves

 A Spell of Falling Leaves

Fall leaves crunch beneath my feet,
each step awakening
some small, forgotten spell.

Acorns lie scattered on the path—
little moons,
little omens—
warning me to watch my step,
to pay attention
to what the earth has placed
before me.

The woods beckon.

Not with words,
but with color—
maple burning crimson,
oak kindling into gold,
the last green of summer
fading like an old enchantment.

I follow.

And through the canopy above,
the sunbeams slant
at an ancient angle,
golden spears of light
piercing the shadowed green.

In those shafts of brightness,
vultures appear—

silent messengers
circling the thin blue air,
their wings catching
the dying summer.

Below them,
beneath the trees,
mushrooms silently catapult 

tiny spores out from under their caps

 and clear of their gills. 

 
pale lanterns of the underworld,
rising where leaves have fallen,
where roots remember
what the living forgets.

And the equinox arrives.

For one breath,
the world is balanced—

day and night,
standing face to face,
light holding darkness
and darkness holding light.

The forest knows.

The trees release their leaves
not as surrender,
but as ritual.

One by one,
they loosen their golden hands
and let the wind
carry summer away.

Nothing is lost.

The fallen leaves
return to the earth.
The acorns dream beneath the soil.
The mushrooms open
their secret doors.

Even the darkness
is making something.

So I stand beneath the canopy
while the last light
moves through the branches,

and I wonder
if autumn is not a dying
but a remembering—

a whisper from the earth
that everything beautiful
must change,

that every ending
has roots,

and that somewhere
beneath the dark,

something ancient
is already 

beginning to bloom.