Halloween

The light is leaving, sewn golden along the edges,
and I rush to chase the veins of rust along the stream,
as the light guides me through the tunnels of vine maple, and oceanspray,
and beneath the small, dark tree-ferns
and the moss-sided maples,
and the one ash tree that grows wind-bent up the hill,
until at last I turn around and the sun is behind me,
caught up in the wind-fluttering leaves,
ready to fall into the firs,
the way a wave pulls gently at the sand,
and I hold my hand to the dying light,
until my skin is as gold as the maples,
drawn into the autumn darkness,
and the sun returns to its roots, its dusk home below the earth,
leaving the chickadees to call the night forth, steady and soft in their songs.