Warm and tender, the sotto voce passages
of The Passion of Joan of Arc soundtrack
waft softly through the room,
replenishing the pre-winter glow
of a perfect autumn afternoon.

Deep yellows, oranges and reds line
the cracking, gray sidewalk –
beacons of the inexorable killing to come
in this, the outpatient season.

I have survived many such seasons,
thinking only of what lies ahead,
willing myself blind to what has come before,
vainly trying to grasp what is here, now,
dream upon dream upon dream.

I flee Time, the incorrigible executioner,
who leads each brilliantly colored leaf –
its medical gown gaping – to the lip
of the abyss, forcing it, with
an icy hypodermic shove, over the edge.

At the bottom lie piles upon piles of
fading badges of courage – oak, maple, elm;
crumpled prescriptions;
fraying prayer flags once flown to protest
Nature’s annual euthanasia.

Now, in this outpatient season, let us not forget
the sap of the trees slowly freezing,
let us not forget the mesmerizing harmonies
of angelic anthems urging us to turn away
from the illusory beauty of death.

But let us hear the screams of Joan of Arc
as she is burned at the stake for heresy,
the flames leaping as high as her crudely
shorn head, singeing away her wispy eyebrows:
She, the chief victim of ecclesial euthanasia.

Yes, this is the outpatient season,
the season where autumn goes to die –
stripped, prepped and scrubbed –
and where we strive to survive,
in deep yellows, oranges and reds.