Things stop. At first, at least.
Lazily the day stumbles down the timeworn stairs
pauses in the hallway, holds the stillness then prepares
to greet the silence, genuflecting like a priest
presiding over hunched remnants of some past skirmish
the battle scars of yesterday's embrace.
Don't worry. There is no rush to face
detritus, flotsam, jetsam, though the wish
to cleanse, refresh, move on
stirs atrophying limbs, sparks those dormant cells
to shed the rusting aches of joints whose pain tells
the story of such other days, since lived and gone.
The clock: insistently it ticks.
The day threads forwards and, prompted by the rhythmic beat,
rises from the winged-back chair, stretches to meet
the first stirrings of the space beyond. It picks
precisely with its outstretched hands
the murmuring of leaves, the pressing truth of Autumn, Fall,
the echoed whispers that define time's insistent call
and all the virtuous patience it demands.