Dates Of Autumn Official

The second date comes with a clatter of dry leaves skating down the asphalt. You wear a sweater you forgot you owned, and the light tilts sideways after three o’clock.

On the tenth date, autumn hands you its keys. The pumpkins are collapsed, the leaves are a brown paste on the curb. You stand at the edge of the yard, breathing the last of the woodsmoke, and you realize: the dates of autumn were not appointments to keep, but thresholds to cross— each one a small permission to let go. dates of autumn

The eighth date is a funeral and a feast— the last tomatoes, bruised but sweet, the first frost stitching silver across the grass. You take down the summer wreath, hang up the bone-white gourds. Something in you is dying, something else is being born. The second date comes with a clatter of

On the seventh date, the trees stand naked without shame. The sun, tired of its own ambition, slides down the horizon by four. You light a candle before dinner because the dark has become a kind of guest. The pumpkins are collapsed, the leaves are a

By the fifth date, the geese have signed their V’s across the falling sky. Pumpkins turn into lanterns for one brave night, then soften into the ground. You learn that beauty doesn’t last— it only ripens, then releases.

Here is the full text for “Dates of Autumn,” an original poetic piece written in the spirit of the season.