Not Yet

The black gums have begun to turn, a mottled orange haze against a still-green canopy.
"Nooo!!!" a part of me cries,
Time, like sand, slipping through my fingers.
"I am not ready! Don't go....not yet," I whimper.

Scattered sassafras and tulip trees yellowing, the odd red maple and woodbine coloring crimson.
The wood thrush's song, slower, more wistful sounding,
 a song of soon-leaving rather than just-arrived.
Are they readying to move on?

Why no sadness at the hummingbird migration?
With feeders and plantings, do I feel like a benefactor in their journey, as if that gives some semblance of control?
My planted landscape colors in autumn - reds, yellows, oranges, purples...another illusion of control, in a look I have designed?

But, the black gum leaves...unexpected, entirely on their own schedule.
So like my body, getting on in years, signs of the of the senescence that will surely come in its own time.
Is this at root in the autumn melancholy? The whisper of advancing age, of endings?

Contemplative practice invites the acceptance of what is, not what I wish were.
Acceptance, the opposite of striving, of holding on.
Will I ever learn?