Farm stands are sold out of pumpkins and corn.
Ice cream stalls are hawking
strawberry or peach or black cherry fudge
in quart containers, half off for one,
buy four get two free.
Early frost and snow showers predicted
this coming first November weekend.
Mid-term election’s this Tuesday.
Red, blue, green cardboard campaign posters
are lying on the road side,
bent or flattened or soaked
from the last two days of freezing rain.
A shrouded sun sits way down in the southwest now,
setting with a dim light that is shadowing
through the screens of our three season porch.

See?
It’s easy to tell when winter’s nearing.

I’ll be 76 in a month.
My bones complain when I pry my body out of bed.
I wear wool vests all the time now.
The last season’s sneaking in under the dull
rainbow of dead leaves spread across the grass.

It’s not hard to tell what all
is coming to an end.