BURNING LEAVES

Against the cool November eve we built our fires,

And watched in simple wonder as the sparks and embers

Made their quiet rise through the bare trees above

And out against the dark, star sprinkled sky.

“They’re like shooting stars, Dad,” came his innocent voice

Full of young wonder, and the lost innocence of once me.

“Yes,” I replied in an old folk wisdom voice as best I could.

“Meteors they call them, not shooting stars at all.”

“Ya,” he said, “Beautiful no matter what they’re called.”

“Where do they go, Dad?” “I don’t really know, son.” Silence.

“They burn themselves out. The embers lose their heat source,

And the shooting stars disintegrate in our atmosphere.”

The sweet-cool smells of Autumn filled our senses;

It is good, I thought, and he is lucky to have in his memory

This most exquisite of memories: fall, family, and burning leaves.

It is the spirit of deep human recall, archetypal; the embers and the stars.

“There,” he said pointing, “The three brothers and the Great Bear!”

“Indeed, and where is Cassiopeia, the big ‘W’ in the sky?”

“There,” he said, “And Jupiter over there.” “And Mars,” said I.

And we gazed together into the dark. Into future and past; into our souls.

The newspaper reported today that someone had just paid nearly

One million dollars for a piece of abstract art. Picassos sell

For as much. Yet those same individuals scoff at the beauty of stars;

Of seeing Pegasus fly, or Orion come north for winter hunting.

“The ancients must have had great imaginations,” they say,

“To see such things in those star groups. It’s just random.”

Indeed. The smoke draws me back; my son is poking the ashes

With his stick probe and the cold catches the back of my neck.

“Let’s head in now,” I say with some hint of a nagging doubt.

We turn from the smoldering pile and walk like two savages

Out of the darkness toward the deck and the lights of the house.

At the door I turn, and catch a glimpse of Pegasus high in the sky.