Striding Into Autumn

Friday afternoon I took that trail,
the one that’s usually too wet from dew or rain,
where every biting insect made its home.

But now, early fall,
a scattering of leaves have fallen,
the sun peeks through occasionally.

I start down the leaf-covered path.

The dried foliage crunches loudly with each stride.

I stretch into my usual steady pace.

This is forest beginning its quiet time:
myriad colorful fungi,
brown bully bracken,
carpets of verdant moss
ruling the forest floor.

I’ve arrived after the morning runners—
the marathoners who’ve already traversed the blanketed way
and broken the spiders’ bridges.

Abandoned birds’ nests appear,
revealed by the thinning canopy.

Squirrel drays dot the forest above, exposed to all.

I hear still-hopeful goshawks searching for the odd mouse
that may still be foraging.

My footfalls no longer beat a drum against hardened earth.

The moss and layered leaves muffle each stride into whispers.

Gone is the buzz of dragonflies,
replaced by the last chirping grasshoppers.

Soon the goshawks too will quiet, the grasshoppers fade.

But already I glimpse deer through the thinned understory,
and imagine the trail’s next transformation:
the first snow muffling even whispers,
when winter gives back the deepest quiet of all.