Wind, fur, sweaters, beards
gathering and carrying
seeds of many sorts

Weather’s gray and chilly
the passionfruit’s finally wrinkly
and it’s a softer time now
Coming into the dusk of the day and of the year,
a time of waning, darkening
harvesting, clearing

Soft grasses of the open places
Eragrostis, Agrostis, Muhlenbergia, Erianthus
gentle tufts of Snakeroot and Blue Mist
glowing allure of the Rabbit Tobacco
a lamp guiding through the portal of liminality 

At cliff’s edge, Little Bluestem, with golden chains of seeds
gazing at the waves of the Blue Ridge
the little squares of Stuart’s Draft farm plots 
Nearby, a drift of stonecrop in full bloom
horizons of Juniper berries, heavy and aromatic 

Near the top of the mountain,
a sacred sea of Stoneroot,
happy yellow blooms on sturdy stalks
I could live in the balm of your musky lemon fragrance
I imagine you following the veins of the springs
all the way down the mountain
down into the rich hollows, down to my doorstep 
where you have been knocking, and I am listening

Listening: a steady patter of nuts on the forest floor,
rhythm merging with the Woodpecker polyphony
searching for snakeskin Persimmon bark
the round orange gems, raindrops clinging to their fragile skin

Many say a hard winter is coming
Not a single sunflower-seed left in the heads; 
the birds are preparing
Here, between the seasons of fire and frost
we must diligently prepare for rest

And for the rest