All across most
of the northern hemisphere,
dead leaves
start to fall near the end
of September,
exerting, as they land
on the cooling
earth around here,
a certain quiet,
even pressure,
a distinct but insinuated
coercion
of that solitude—
of that placid desolation
and patient
loneliness ahead—
that no man or woman
who walks out
amid the scene
can realize—
or realistically
could ever hope
to bear to—
how exquisitely
but tenuously
all the rest
just felt it too.
