Trees

The smell this time of year takes me

Cooler temperatures of fall

Sacred

A much harder love of leaving

Like the leaves

Branches moving past the way to absorption of the sun

Taking me back to coastal Maine

My sentient understanding

That never does fully

This coastal mystery

My went

Andrew Wyeth paintings at the Farnworth Art Museum

How time and spirit and this essence of the soul

Can have a frame on a wall

And make me a little bit more whole

In the looking

As if it was always in

When it was how

This looking out

Like paintings do

And feeling that I am in something more

Than me

Fall’s smell of everything including death

Of unpainted color

What trees believe.

— Neil Frederick, Brown County

Fall

Everything leaves

Unnoticed by the leaves

Of trees

In October

Bright orange, yellow, brown

Abound

Roots

Soil

Bones

Of our mother

Father

This everything

Like a carpet to be spent

On the stitching of the next quilt

This yesterday built

On gifted craftsmanship

This everything of others

Celebrating now

This belief

This love

For our next winter’s spring.

— Neil Frederick, Brown County