Once In Autumn

“Choose the least important day in your life. 

It will be important enough.” 

― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

Once in autumn.....

Nekiah hand-stitched every leaf,

with unerring eye,

making Tree Spirit costumes

for you and your friend,

Isaac Blue Sky.

We didn't know, 

back then,

just how precious

were those fleeting days

of grace,

how quickly life

was flying by,

too fast the pace.

First, you grew.

Too soon,

before I was ready,

before you were, too,

you were out of the nest

and away;

for your heartbreaks

my heart, too, would pay,

you, so young and heedless 

and rash,

my hair slowly turning

the color of 

silvery ash.

Too soon,

Nekiah was gone.

It was cancer.

Isaac Blue Sky's life 

was forever

fractured.

Those innocent faces 

up there,

those round trusting eyes

that enraptured,

those smiles that had 

not yet known pain........

remind me that once,

once in autumn,

we all lived precious days

that will not,

              will not ever

                            come again.

for Sumana's prompt at Midweek Motif: Autumn. I re-worked an old poem from 2010, for this prompt, as autumn always reminds me of those fleeting, precious days. Ouch. A pang in my heart.