Try not to be afraid

To burn the old poetry

If you require its light

If summer fades too quickly

To winter without a pause

Some years will be like that

But this year

Autumn lingered

Setting all the trees ablaze

Insisting I finally stop

Be in the season

And when I lost something

I felt it

As though my whole body

Remembered how often

It had smothered its own ache

Just to survive

To take another fearful step

This year walking with slow

Intention through it all

All the decomposing leaves

Not even to gather seeds

For another season

But to be in this one

Reaching my hands deep

Into almost frozen dregs

All the moments I tried to bury

And excavate them up

In great heaping piles

See if I can use the white ash

That remains

To paint a different path

Speak the stories aloud

Just once without shame

Into this thin veil

Between seasons

With the magic

Of those old words

Build an altar

And watch them burn

Like the trees

Come into full season