The light we set to saving in the spring
we only borrowed; now we must return
it so the southern hemisphere can bring
its crops to readiness, its skin aburn.
We fall this weekend back. We get the hour
sacrificed to light our evenings when
we started gardens, daffodils in flower,
and joked we’d have these minutes back again.

I walk today through powdered sycamore.
On busy pavements, fallen leaves are milled
to gold like sawdust on a tavern floor,
and autumn puddles gleam like liquor spilled.
We set our clocks, and think we synchronize
a universe where life is time’s surprise.