The Green Riot: Last Call

Solidago spp., a photo by FreeManWalking on Flickr.

A crisp autumn wind has already blown across the glades
Pushing summer out, the new season ushers in a glowing yellow sunlight.
I have become a botanist at last, so many photographs, so many
Thumb smudges sifting through field guides
Identifying, classifying.
I have watched the green float up from the mud,
Grow, diversify, flower in over a hundred forms
Flowers with dozens of different scents to tempt the perfect pollinator.
But the bright, wet, dripping green of spring and summer are gone.
Now the Indian summer flares across the glades with one last warm breath before the long sleep.
The leaves turn dark, ripped by insects, blistered by the sun, a couple burnt by the first hint of frost on a chilly night.
The growing season was long. Now life is tired. The verdant riot needs a break.
The hickories, dogwoods and maples have one last brilliant show of yellow and red before they can shed their clothes and rest.
The coda to the season has peaked as the goldenrod, thoroughwort, and asters slowly wind down retiring one by one.
But the frailest of plants, the stonecrop, the heliotrope, the fame flower, have already gone, crumbling into the Earth after a successful season, only to return in the genetic matrix of seeds they left behind.