Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the steady darkening toward Christmas. The world slows down and thinks about itself more deeply. And with the early darkness, we can see farther into lighted interiors as the night comes on. I’m sitting now in a coffee house in my little town. It’s getting dark, and the small shop across the street is a jack-o-lantern. But I don’t like Halloween. The little kids are cute in their costumes, but then they’re always cute. Beyond that, the holiday is shrill and vulgar, grotesque.

I like Dia de los Muertos. The Mexican Day of the Dead has a context. It’s not superfluous or rude. In its rhythm and mysticism, there is meaning, rooted not in fear but in loving memory. I’m glad it’s not an American thing because we ruin everything, strip and drain it of meaning and power, until it’s politically correct and fits the moral relativism and the most spiritually convenient common denominator of the Great Unwashed.

If Christmas is for presents and Easter is for candy, when do we celebrate the birth and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Have we forgotten Him? And the Eve of All Saints as well? We have. What will be the cost of that? The wasteland of our collective spirit will bring our barren culture crashing down around our ears.

Speaking of fall, here’s a poem I wrote about it a while back. I set out to do a poem for a co-worker who was leaving for greener ground. I wound up thinking of another woman entirely. I probably should have kept the poem to myself at that point. Emotional clouds. Story of my life.

Trouble with the Fall

I always write about autumn,

how the air changes becoming thinner,

how the crows gather in the thinning

trees, calling to something they must

see beyond life. Even blood is weaker,

opaque, but soup cures this.

I loved a woman once, and for many

years, but then one clear October night

we talked on a veranda overlooking

eucalyptus and the crows were quiet,

the moon was up and when I turned

to find her she was gone.

I blame the moon for making things

obvious, the crows for not defending me.

I love the season with leaves underfoot,

the first puddles and Dia de los Muertos

and see – the trouble with the fall

is just that someone always leaves.