The Fall

When autumn comes I hold on;
the sun glints low,
casting long shadows behind
as leaves disperse and die.

Yet not all is lost;
vibrations exchange with gusts
while tired cottons blue,
a tale of hunger in motion.

I enter the twirling of dreams,
rice blooms beneath twilight,
searching a sigh for a heart,
for fear brushes the day.

What I won’t walk on,
life’s memories split in pieces
like a gathering of oranges,
you know they surrender measles.

A sigh on old soil,
a garden recounted echoes
at the heart of fall.

• Gabriela Mistral