Falling
Annette Marie Hyder
Previously published in Empowerment4Women

I love fall.
The air is spiced with wood smoke and chill.
The trees are heart stopping bouquets of color
and the color that I love the best is yellow.
When I first moved back to Minnesota
from my brief return to Florida
I was introduced to a photographer.

He talked about going to Plymouth
for a day of photography.
I pictured a picnic lunch
some wine, some fruit, some cheese
amidst the stunning leaves.
"Let us go soon. The leaves will not stay yellow for long.
They are the most beautiful when they are yellow
but they disappear so fast..."

He spoke in that formal contractionless way
that many non-native-English-speakers do
and which is always charming.
He spoke of the leaves changing
with such poignancy and longing in his voice
I wanted to say "Let's go now! I'll go with you
and we will look at the leaves
together
while they are still the color we love."

But we both had schedules that bossed us
and dictated when and where we could
exercise this pleasure.
We kept scheduling a time to go
and then something would come up
and we didn't see
the yellow leaves of Plymouth together.

I am thinking about him today.
There was a sadness about him
a feeling that 'the widdershins winds
pugilistically pushed
your skies black and blue'
but a sadness flashing with brilliant sunlight...
and I want to tell him
that the only way to really see
the colors of the leaves
is through the lens
of spontaneity
which must be free of its cap — obscuring scheduling.