Sing Me Autumn

The sun strikes sparks from the jeweled trees --
their firelight, framed by the window, shows me
the burnished edges of your beauty
(I am not shown the edge of my desire).
Shadows, like tidewater creeping up the shore,
lie snug at your side and in the hollows of your eyes.
Are you sleeping?
Love, autumn lies out the window,
Gaudy as a courtesan in her old age,
Patient as the sea. Is this your kind of wisdom?
I came to you with violets in my hands,
gentle purple as the questions I would ask you,
springtime-tentative. I was so young.
"Spring is too simple," you smiled as you told me,
"Sing me autumn when you fall in love."
The season of trees like roses and wind like dry white wine;
The season of time running out, of resignation.
Show yourself to me. What are you thinking?
Don't you feel this moment like a current, pulling you past reason?
I do,
but you're like a well, deep and static and shadowed.
Show yourself to me. Love me. I love you.
Sing me autumn.

My college friend Jane Thompson wrote this poem more years ago than either of us probably care to count. Although we lost touch, as college friends often do, her poem has stuck in my mind. I went looking for it tonight because I find myself in a relationship that came out of the blue. If she sees this, I hope she'll understand and forgive me for reprinting it here.

I have been the speaker, and now I find myself as the other. Or perhaps both. It is no secret that we see things from a different perspective in our later years. It also shouldn't be a secret that we are still capable of expanding our horizons and learning new things. And sometimes we need to relearn how to do things that have grown stale from lack of use.

Teach me to sing again, and I'll sing you autumn.