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