The air is sweet with toasted leaves

and glass-cool breeze against

my cheek.

While time unspools in eddying pools

and restless heaps about

my feet,

I walk through snapshots,

unsorted frames

of pasts and presents, overlaid —

Autumn picnics,

lone, caged bears,

peaked and slender monuments;

Alter-egos handed

candy, cider,

popcorn balls;

Raking seas of leaves

in mountainous heaps,

and leaping;

Hikes through mazes,

tall and golden;

Small hands growing,

letting go;

A hundred knocks and more

upon our door

in a single night —

My aging, ageless self sees

each image simultaneous;

Concurrent moments captured

amid the blaze of Autumn-colored

Now.

–C.Birde