Watching autumn

[Billy]

Watching autumn

through the kitchen window,
coming to grips
with what I know.
Letting what I don't know
fall gently aside.
I think about changing my plans,
becoming a better person
that people will remember.
Forget the one great poem,
the retiree painting in the garage,
building the sculptures
that he envisioned ever since
he saw the mountains,
for the first time, back in '78.
All of those dreams
unfinished
or barely started.
Do dreams ever end?
The leaves have turned,
are beginning to fall.
They were magnificently red
and golden for a time.

[CalebMurdock]

I like this poignant poem in which you seem to capture an older man's thoughts. There's a sense of being lost in the poem. You create a palpable mood that I can feel. Well done. I would only suggest that you capitalize the first word.

I like the way you juxtapose the mountains (big, magnificent things) with unfinished dreams.

You ask if dreams ever end. For me, at 73, there are not many of them left beyond putting my poems in a book.

[CalebMurdock]

(I keep getting big error messages when I post. Does anyone else get them?)

[BobBradshaw]

Agreed. A poignant poem. Something we all consider, at least briefly, at our age:

I think about changing my plans,
becoming a better person
that people will remember.
Forget the one great poem,
the retiree painting in the garage,

[FranktheFrank]

I agree with the poem's sentiments, we should strive to become
better poets but more than that, better people. Falling leaves
remind us that we too have a limited life span allotted to us
and that all this will come to an end soon enough and we will
return from whence we came, to the earth.

[Billy]

Thanks Caleb, Bob, Frank