It is such a madness that makes the monarch migrate –
the first smell of that season sinks upon us in late September.
Such powerful subtlety.
All nature forced to kneel
in instinctive awe by that singular smell.
It is the smell of green leaves
at that instant before they change to red.
It is the smell of soil that creatures turn up
as they burrow unerringly downward.
It is the smell that we mistake for cold
on that first night –
sends us groping for the extra blanket.
It is a smell that announces the remembering season –
the fifth season.
Does not itself last longer than
a memory;
a season that haunts with failures we had not acknowledged
until now.
Yet enchants us with potent achievement –
the dreams in later summer
when such madness will be
sated by more ferny smells.
- James M. Kemp
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