Autumn

Autumn is moving into Iowa. Though not officially here for another two weeks, the temperatures have reached down to the low 50s at night, the high 60s during the day, with a crisp sun. We close the windows at night. The quilt is back on the bed and pulled up around our shoulders. The corn is turning brown and the soy fields yellow and both will be harvested soon. Jeans replace shorts. Sound seems amplified in the thin air, light more intense.

Metaphorically, autumn usually represents the on come of loss and death, as Shelley puts it: “Thou dirge / Of the dying year.” No doubt because I’ve lived most of my life in education, autumn has for me represented rather rebirth, the promise of a new (school) year, a new beginning, tabula rasa: Thou paean / Of the coming year.

But this autumn is different. While I’ve just started teaching two new classes, they are online and only two and I’m now retired. I don’t have four or five classes. I don’t have to go up to campus five days a week. I don’t have to go to department meetings once a month. I don’t have to go to professional development days, five this semester. And I don’t look at the season in the same way. I’m not sure what to make of it: Thou ditty / Of whatever the season might bring.