What Would Keats Think?

The first of October's leaves fall in a flurry of gold, forming a carpet of crisp Krugerrands; a pumpkin-lined path lit by a low sun leading towards Hallowe'en. Well, at least that's what the leaves do in an unemployed poet's mind. The putrefying truth is very different.

Actually, their fall is more like the slow drip of dirty brown water from a rusty tap into a broken sink, its drain long since blocked by a shapeless mass of slimy human hair and soap scum. But we lyricists must keep the Autumnal myth alive in this so-called 'Spooky Season' of frauds and hollow fruitlessness.

Alas, Johnny Appleseed now orders online from the comfort of his climate-controlled condominium. 'Made in China, our new indoor apple orchard provides enough apples to bake fifteen ersatz apple pies or ferment fifty gallons of apple cider vinegar. Your choice, it's a free country after all.' Johnny chooses to do the pies. Unfortunately only one is Instagram worthy so the rest go in the garbage. 

Indian summer and I'm loitering at the edge of an ornamental pond, as aimless as the breeze buffeted ripples on its surface, when the gloomy face of an ancient carp appears in a gap between two leathery green lilies. His big rubbery lips open and close soundlessly, as if he's trying to mouth fishy secrets to me without being overheard by those migrating birds. If only he could speak in sign-language with his pectoral fins, I might learn a thing or two about survival as a bottom feeder.

Meanwhile, cute Miss Cranberry's garden is full of inflatable phantoms and plastic skeletons covered with silly string DayGlo cobwebs. Three weeks before the kids emerge to collect their buckets of candy and her house is already haunted by crass commercial decorations. All the parents are worried that it will rain on the neighborhood Hallowe'en parade again this year. Even in Spooky Season, there is nothing scarier than Mother Nature's weather whims.

And so, at sunset, I watch the first leaf fall into my front yard. Did it jump or was it pushed? It seems concerned that none of its friends have followed it down. But I suppose we're all somewhat confused nowadays. Autumnal mist has turned into dense fog and we'll need to replace our jack-o-lanterns with real flashlights to see where we're going.


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