Autumn's Last Day

Autumn's Last Day

Last day of autumn

truly

really.

I knew her

ever

so

briefly

for a summer

beautiful

to look at

generous

kind

she walked with me

yesterday,

down

autumn's

stairs

into

my mind's eye

her old age

a

vision

never old

such

dignity

such

grace,

as

we

approach

this

vacant

winter,

Linda

*****************************************************************************

I met Linda for the very first time when I was a kid, we were visiting our relatives out in the L.A. area of California. I was twelve years old then. My Aunt Estelle & Linda were best friends back in their days of Canoga Park, & raising their families. They continued to be best friends for fifty years or more, often times venturing into business together. I again saw Linda when she & my Aunt Estelle were on one of their cross country trips about five years ago, & they stopped in to visit with us. That visit was quite monumental as I hadn't seen my Aunt Estelle for a wanders span of years, forty. It was wonderful to reconnect. Then this past June we all had a wonderful opportunity to stay with them for a few days out in Frazer Park, in the

Los Madras/Los Padres, National Park, of the high dessert, where they lived, up in the true wilderness mountains of California.

Linda's favorite flower was the, California red poppy. She told me it was because they are so beautiful, & grow wild in masses, up where they live. "They are the official flower of California", she said. She was of course, by birth a California native too, blooming ever so beautifully & proud, in her beloved high dessert mountain range.

We miss her, it is all so fleeting.

[Thus concludes today's addition to Poetry A Muse In Motion, on this 2010's last day of autumn.]