Today after class I went walking through this windstorm; when I stood still I could feel the sun warming the back of my legs and when I looked up I could see leaves sailing straight through the air, thirty feet above my head, because they would get whipped off their branches and never get a chance to set down. I had one of those strange pause moments, a moment of arrested glance across the street and you see a scene holding its breath for you, a linger of one second and some strange electricity in the holding-still and the indiscernible pause between picking your own foot up and putting it back down in front of you (do you know what I mean?), and it made me remember this poem.
Autumn
Not working, not breathing,
the beehive sweetens and dies.
The autumn deepens, the soul
ripens and grows round;
drawn into the turning color of fruit,
cast out of the idle blossoms.
Work is long and dull in autumn,
the word is heavy.
More and more heavily, day by day,
nature weighs down the mind.
A laziness like wisdom
overshadows the mouth with silence.
Even a child, riding along,
cycling into the white shafts of light,
suddenly will look up
with a pale, clear sadness.
-Bella Akhmadulina
I've never read this poem but I liked it a lot. Autumn inspires me so much.
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