So much of the fall has already passed, but though the seasons change we cannot forget. Each poem was written in a specifically special place on campus. Here are three pieces on seasonal blues, perfect for the transition time.

At the Break of Rich Winter

Dead leaves whisper amongst themselves

Plotting their long awaited return

An annual revival, the festival of bloom

Dark wood etched with the lines of wear

Varying in color, stature, and weight

The dark ground rumbles

And the whistling wind shakes

At the break of day, the grass is still dry

And brown, and crunchy absent of dew

The sky is stark gray and lightly misted

Obscuring the kind sun from our view

In the bleak distance we see,

there is light behind the horizon

A piece of opportunity

A glimmer of hope imbued

Forest Gossip

The whispering woods in winter:

Leaves rattle with gossip

Branches wail at the wind

Squirrels fight one another

And the brown ground sighs again

No fresh flesh to replenish its soil,

No green grass to color its field

A blanket of dead mulch its cover

The white snow has melted, no longer real

In the fog, reality sets in

And sinks, and swallows to sustain

The dark truth that lies in the forest

When the ground is absent of grain

Winter Blues

I am hurt

But I can’t pin the point of entry

Night falls over me like a sheet, days rise as fast as they fall

I lay words to no avail,I spread the thick balm of suppression over my wound as if it will somehow heal what is already done.

Blanking out and blacking out I find relief

I’m ridiculed for my method of deliverance

But who can judge my pain and my measures

I cannot always

Hide behind the curtains of strength and bravery

When I’m wrapped tight in the cloth of shame and sorrow

Bring me wine to drink, yet I’ll be drunk in misery

In the clouds I sink low to the trenches, my mind blurred and my body numbed

Blurred between the pain yet distinctly aware