I  want to mention summer ending
without meaning the death of somebody loved

or even the death of the trees.
Today in the market I heard a mother say

Look at the pumpkins, it’s finally autumn!
And the child didn’t think of the death of her mother

which is due before her own but tasted the sound
of the words on her clumsy tongue:
pumpkin; autumn.

Let the eye enlarge with all it beholds.
I want to celebrate color, how one red leaf

flickers like a match held to a dry branch,
and the whole world goes up in orange and gold.

Linda Pastan