Out searching
Happy first day of autumn, friends <3
It is autumn,
and I am out searching—
not with lanterns, but with a gusto
that only hits me when the leaves hit the pavement.
I’m looking under piles of faded chlorophyll and
flicking through old photographs,
foraging for a feeling I had when I was seven.
Do you remember what it was like
when the world was coated in sugary sweetness?
When the cold air felt like the start of a season
and not a door that’s been cracked open to the past?
When you yearn for those bygone days,
what is it you are really aching for?
Is it the feeling you had back then?
Or is it the feeling you wish you would’ve had?
My friends, do not wish to go back when
you’ve arrived so wonderfully now.
Do not imagine what could have been
when it has already been.
Don’t you know you have so many more autumns
to warm your hands on the mug?
To drink in the slowness you too often deprive yourself of?
To watch the sun set just a little earlier each day,
and put yourself to bed before the ache grows in the darkness?
Don’t you know you have so much beautiful time?
When you find yourself looking backwards,
don’t forget that hindsight is often dripping in bittersweet sap,
that nostalgia is charming, but a dirty liar.
When you crunch over the dead leaves
and are sent back to your youth for just a second,
don’t forget to listen to the whispers under your feet
when they say slow, slow, slow, slow.
It is autumn,
and I am out searching—
which is quite silly,
when everything I need
has always been right inside of me.
-kk
