Dogs say nothing
Of the nine lives of cats.
Cats only whine for food and for sleep.

He was writing the greatest love letter of all time
Because, he said, it was about the greatest woman to walk the Earth
And how she single-handedly melted the world and buckled knees with her stare.
Had a smile that made you feel things with senses you couldn't begin to understand.
He was writing her a love letter with words
That were the most horribly inadequate words to describe her.
Words like beautiful, special, life-changing, perfect.
The love letter he would never finish because of her brilliance.
A love letter thrown away when he saw her holding hands with a man.
And replaced with tears and floral arrangements.
The greatest love note ever written became his entire life
Left in a box
Six feet underground.

You can never conquer me
I won't be bought or sold
I can take away your looks
I can make you old

I can be the enemy
I can sit and bide
Always an enigma
Sometimes on your side

Ever am I constant
Slowly passing by
When you just forget me
That's when I can fly

You can mark my passing
With an anxious frown
You can measure
You can treasure
But never slow me down

A constant disappearing
Like footprints in the sand
You can try to cheat me
But you'll never beat me
I hold the winning hand

The Autumn missal has arrived,
A fall reminder of the coming cold,
Strange slanting light to shift the maple
Greens to furious red and gold.

High above the myriad travelers chant adieu,
As on their sky-road paths they sing,
A chorus glorious to southern waters blue
Where winter marshes serve a warm retreat.

A liturgy of highest order drives the world
Beyond the ken of time-old cycles round;
Hibernal instinct now in feral life unfurls:
Flogs squirrels outward on their oak-corn bounds,
Plushes wealth of wolves' warm winter fur,
Hardens bone and antler, deepens feathered down,
Adds harvest fat to beast and fish and fowl,
Drives sap below old Frost's attempt to burrow down.

_____
Unspoken paen unheard by almost all,
A careless shivering passerby may dread
This ritual changing of the Fall,
But never mind, the liturgy is read,
And Nature safely tucks herself into her wintery bed.