Day breaks on Doubletop Mountain, shadowing villages below.
Three-thousand eight hundred feet tall, it captures the eye!
And standing at attention there in front of me, a battalion of Sugar Maples in full…. Fall…. Regalia!
Cascading tones of Crimsons, Burgundy, scarlet reds and Golden Hue.

Gazing over Dunk Hill as farmer’s plow  fields, turn again for fertility,
There are only brief streams of life giving sunlight, and now the sky turns to a pale grey.
Me, well I live for this time of year….enjoying the evening autumn constellations,
Or Moms dining table adorned with Indian corn and blackberry canes!

Bessie's Margaretville home begins the fall ritual of canning and drying.
Breaking out winter clothes…as she proclaims "no whites after Labor Day"!
The last bit of warmth now dwells just behind the Catskill’s Harvest Moon,
And the V of geese honk their good-byes to the summer sun.

Harmonica and strums sail my shores
Tell my whole clan sonny, he ain't good
That I met a troller under a sycamore
He passed me all the love as he veiled

We walked around,camouflaged by leaves
Tell mummy he was a preacher's son
A soul that was open and hid it's stick
Unharmonised in accapellas I drowned

Swingers of melodic stormy strings
Tell sassy to keep her tassels tucked
To calm her tussles and noisy gongs
Shake on the octave of the beats

Whisked dreams of the lost yesterdays
Tell Jimmy to listen to her heart raise
Tie her down, bring her back home
Liberate and let her fly like a wild bird

Your rapture is infectious,
genuine,
and unconditional.
You are endearing in a way that is physically painful to me.
I adore you like a wildfire.
Your eyes have been shaped like a laugh since noon.
Everything is viscid with the scent
of your youth;
sycamore,
marjoram,
tattered baseball gloves,
and a whisper of burning wood.
I’m a little in love with all of it.
Summer digs its way into my veins.
You dissolve into a splendid and fearless laugh.
Its dripping with a sort of ferocious, tranquil charm.
One of my hands is a promise,
the other is a secret,
and darling,
they are identical;
I have been missing you
as long as I have known you.