The Fires of Autumn

The Fires of Autumn (To the Memory of My Mother - Millicent Kant (1928-2014) When autumn came to the Parkway, it was as if the trees decided to play with the warmest colors they could find and sent them to unsettle everyone who lived there into dancing on the most unsettling air it could supply. In my Rosh Hashanah dreams you sang, matching your high notes to your scarf as if they became colors that already knew northern autumn. We were supposed to be sober and think. But when you sang I could feel nothing but love that pretended to be sad but lilted in tones tinged the deepest of burning orange. Day shortened, but burned and trembled all the higher, like God vanishing in the holiest of flames, if one decided to believe.