thisnewday

it is fall and i,
like the leaves,
am falling,
towards what end
i do not know.

perhaps simply
to the earth
as they, in their seasons
do, as we,
in our season,
finally must.

and then,
after that, what?
the slow burning,
only, as our dust
goes back to
earth?

perhaps someone
should ask
the leaves
when they're still
bright and green
and sentient
in the sun.

ask them
if they believe that
there's a place
where they will
once again
rise up
into this light...

LPK
LiveJournal
10.1.2015 (p)

it's raining

and the

leaves are falling

in the

woods, i said.

the fall

is really

your time,

he said.

i have the

words,

it all seems

clear,

and endings

fill the

air, i said...

L.P. Knickerbocker

10.16.2000

for rich johnson,

artist and friend

[This is an older piece. From before the time, even, when amandagayle helped me to get my LJ account. But every fall I think about this poem. And the conversation I had with my friend Richard Johnson. So many seasons, so many years ago...]

Years ago, I had an artist friend who observed that Fall seemed to be the most productive time for me as a writer. A while after he said that, he packed up the little car that he'd been driving (between his home on Otisco Lake and the Toyota dealership where we both worked in the city) and went to live the rest of his life somewhere in Florida.

I never heard from him again, but I've always cherished his friendship and remembered what he said. Remembered it through the many brutal Central New York winters that I've lived through since.

So now, it's Fall again and I find that I don't have much to say. I'm not sure what I should attribute that to. Maybe just the slowing down that comes with age. Or, to bring such a thought to its inevitable point, the narrowing of a life, the gradual diminution of hopes and dreams that comes near its end...

LPK
LiveJournal
10.13.2010

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