OLD BONES / OLD SOULS - Day Three

Lots of crunching and cracking
interrupts this quiet fall morning,
the kind of perfect day I wish 
could enter every cell of my body.

But it's not just my old bones I hear,
it's the twig snap of a white-tailed deer
running scared when the path turns.

It's the squirrels making provisions,
their chins looking charred from
gleaning black, cracked walnuts

It's the blue jay, high in the canopy
hammering hickory nuts and letting
the pieces splatter to the dry ground.

It's hundreds of grackles and blackbirds,
chattering as they mass migrate from one
tree top to another, that comfort me.

Their chorus, which is for me not them,
(they know how to navigate this world),
says, "It is time now...

...get ready
...wind down
...make soup
...plan to have some folks over
...choose something to learn
on those too soon nights
when the wind threatens harm
just outside the frosted window.
"Study blackbirds," they say.

This is what those old souls are clacking.
They're reminding me there are reasons 
for the seasons.

Mini-Retreat Suggestion: Take 15 minutes to look outside your favorite window in your house.  Write a short poem about what you see.  What elements of fall call you to "wind down?"  Post your thoughts under Comments.