Clear night, after a September storm

Christian Century, Sept 12, 2001 by Steve Wilson

   To learn from fall, we should be alone.
   Hear its breath on a sudden wind.
   In its first chill sway, we are turned away

   from sun. We cool with a worry
   that colors have tricked us, summer

   was nothing but a stream fed on flood,
   deepened. We could accept leaving,
   then, calmed by quiet, the surrender of

   moments to distance. Had we forgotten
   how stars, pulled free of sky at last,

   would be loosed from the canvas of
   what was? The wind moves like words
   when one is a page for its silence,

   and ready: to be written in yellow leaves,
   to be settled by the logic of the air.